Unforgiving Calories | Teen Ink

Unforgiving Calories

May 17, 2017
By DavyBramer GOLD, Rolla, Missouri
DavyBramer GOLD, Rolla, Missouri
12 articles 0 photos 1 comment

The FDA (Food and drug administration) lets twenty percent of food overdue on products calories also known as “wiggle room”. If you think about it twenty percent might not seem that much, but still can affect the way we eat. The FDA needs to improve the way they regulate calories.


In an article from BareleleyWellness Jeff Rossen says that “consuming an extra 100 calories per day can lead to an extra 10lbs per year. Having an extra 10lbs per year can really affects people’s diets. Some companies trick into thinking we are eating healthy food; but we are really just gaining more and more calories per meal.
Lets say we eat a sandwich that is supposedly is 500 calories. Now when we really look at the sandwich it has 20% more calories which is still with the FDA regulations. But we are still unknowingly eating 115 calories; an extra 10.5 calories per year. Companies need to be truthful when labeling a foods calorie count.


Too many calories can affect our health. Food companies can say certain foods are healthy but what matters how many calories the food has. If there are more calories in a food than listed, it is likely that the food is not so healthy. In fact, the main issue people can gain a lot of weight is because half the time the calories are not labeled correctly.    In an ABC article a reporter named Robert Powell tested 20 restaurant meals.


Eleven meals had more calories than on the menu and 10 fewer calories some were only over by forty calories another was by as much as 420 calories. This shows that restaurants food can be untruthful and truthful in listing an average calorie count. The Americana Dietetic Association explains that “Frozen foods that claim they are healthy are averaged 8% more calories than labeled. Meanwhile restaurants food averaged eighteen percent more”. Frozen foods are not the problem, but what the FDA addressing the problem with restaurant foods.
Robert Powell also tested certain ice cream brands figuring which ones where healthy and which ones where not. Arctic zone had 250 calories over what their label indicated


“Shame on this company” Robert says this ice cream company did not care. They just cared about their sales. John Baur says, “They know they can get away with it because the FDA allows a lot of calories to budge over”.
On a New York Times article  “Calorie Detective”  Casey Neistat explains that the current system fro regulating calories is “woefully inadequate” Casey also tested numerous foods that he regularly ate each day. He figured out the same issue it all comes down to the FDA. If the FDA does not resolve this issue soon, our process is not really good right now so if we continue for it to be like this it’s just going to go down hill from here and if it goes down hill then you will have tons of companies not obliging by the FDA and if that happens Americans obesity will continue to increase so will some other issues with Americas health.                                                                        
 



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