Calorie Tracker Search Engine Numbers - Correct?

3.4k rep

This is actually my first week to use the AH website. I have actually bee having a lot of fun with it. I have been using the food tracker. When I log my foods such as Lean Cuisine and other prepared meals, I go to the product website and look at the nutrition labels. When comparing the actual nutrition label numbers to the number pre-logged on the AH search engine,I have notice they don't always match. Most of the time the numbers in the search engine are less than the actual nutrition label numbers. Has anyone else noticed this?

17k rep

MemberMadison, AL

Yeah. That happens often. I usually take the higher of the two to "be safe." There are two reasons I can think of that this happens:

1. The service that AH uses to get information does their own research and finds that the package labels aren't quite accurate. I don't know why a company would choose to make a higher calorie count, but whatever.
2. The company that sells the food either misprinted, miscalculated, re-calculated, re-did the ingredients, or for whatever reason had to recalculate the nutritional value of the product. The data service AH uses may not update itself when this happens, so the calorie information may not be 100% up-to-date.

Also, read those nutritional values on websites very carefully as companies will very often conveniently leave off details to make their stats look better. For example, Subway doesn't include cheeses in their sandwich count because it's technically an optional part of the sandwich. In fact, a lot of sandwich shops do that; even the ones that list the cheese as part of the sandwich.

3.4k rep

Thank you Chris! I will do that!