Wednesday, January 13, 2010

COUNTING OF CALORIES ISN'T ALWAYS ACCURATE

Counting of Calories Isn’t Always Accurate
Caroline Yerkes
January 13, 2010
CHEM IH

CITATION: Bakalar, Nicholas. The New York Times Online. 13 Jan 2010. 11 Jan 2010.

SUMMARY:
Are calorie totals always correct? When researchers tested the food sold in some chain restaurants and frozen foods sold in grocery stores, they found that the actual calorie content of most foods averaged higher than the given amounts.
Not all foods were this way, and and some dishes actually contained more calories than listed. Some food companies are arguing that not all servings are identical, and more tests need to be done to reach an accurate conclusion.
This article is interesting because you would think that since these values should be regulated by the government that they should always be correct. However this is not the case, and in the research, most listed calorie counts are not correct. This article would be helpful for those basing their diets around a 2000 calories intake, if they have inaccurate figures, it is impossible for them to do this.
I liked this article because it was very interesting. It was pretty well written. It was not very complex or confusing. I like getting articles from the New York Times because they are always very well written and prepared with just the right amount of detail.



4 comments:

  1. One thing Caroline did very well in her article, was state the problem at hand, and who it would effect negatively. I also enjoyed her presentation because it is an interesting topic, and very easy to relate to. Lasty, she made ti easy to understand, when this topic could come across at confusing.
    although Caroline did a great job, one that that she could have done better was maybe include more details on the situation. such as telling us how inaccurate the labels are, and how accurate the tests will be. alos, she could have maybe explained what type of tests would be taken.
    I enjoyed reading this article because i was very unaware that labels were inaccurate, and that all of this was taking place.

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  2. I read Caroline's review of the article "counting of calories isn't always accurate." I liked how she clearly explained the problem. Also, she was very clear in her article review. She also explained what the problem companies were doing to defend themselves. However, she was not very clear about the foods that didn't fit to this standard. She also didn't write most of the article very well.
    I would like to find out if there are any studies that have conflicting suggestions.

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  3. Anderson Hershey Comment
    1/16/10
    1) Caroline did an excellent job of using rhetorical questions. She said, "Are calories always correct?" And she went on to state no and defend her answer. She also did a great job of defending her answer. That foods in grocery stores and fast food chaines are actually higher calorie ratings. And that each serving is not the same. Finally I enjoyed how she stated that more test must be conducted to figure out the difference between possible serving are.
    2) A thing Caroline could improve on is explain how much higher the calorie content of average foods are. Is it 200 calories? 300 calories? Or possibly more. Finally, Caroline could improve on how the researchers found out that the calorie content of a food is more than what is told on the given amount. And possibly explain how the researchers did not find this mistake when first finding the calorie content of foods.
    1) I am curious to know why the researchers have not discovered the calorie content of food is incorrect a long time ago.

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  4. One thing I really liked about Caroline’s article was it was very intriguing and interesting. Also she explained the problem in a clear strait forward and concise way. Finally, I liked how she argued the point of the article to get what they were trying to say across.
    One thing I didn’t like about Caroline’s article was she could have elaborated a lot more, it was kind of a short review and I think she left out some information. Also she could have explained better the reasoning behind what the researchers said and their trials and errors while coming to their conclusion.
    Overall though I thought Caroline did an excellent job and I am curious to find out what this will mean for the food market in the future.

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