Like most of America, you probably have aerosol cooking sprays that loudly proclaim themselves to be fat free and calorie free … but is that really the case? I mean, if you stop and think about it, how could they possibly be zero calorie and zero fat? Think about the kind of stuff that goes into them – vegetable oil, olive oil, etc. That stuff is all fat! It’s all about the serving size.
You see, as long as something has less than 0.5 grams of fat in a serving size, it can be called fat free. And as long as there are less than five calories per serving, it can also be called calorie free. Check out the nutritional information on your cooking spray; most likely the serving size is a spray that lasts one third of a second. One third of a second?!? When was the last time you ever sprayed one of those bad boys for a third of a second? Is that even possible? But if the serving is that small, it falls below those legal requirements and can be called fat free and calorie free.
Here’s the reality: for Pam cooking spray, which is at least honest about their stats when asked (other companies won’t release the info so willingly), a full one second spray is actually about seven calories. I typically spray for a few seconds, so I’m getting 20-30 calories worth of fat on my eggs, omelet, or whatever. That’s okay – we need fats in our diet, but we need to know they’re there. I have to factor that number of calories into my eating over the course of the day.
A healthier way of getting these fats would be to use a non-aerosol mister; it uses a pump to build up pressure and then sprays a fine mist of whatever is in it. I use olive oil; it’s healthier, adds great flavor, and with a mister, I actually keep the serving down even smaller than with an aerosol can. On top of that, I’ve eliminated all those preservatives, aerosol type stuff and other things that I really don’t need in my system. If you want, you can order one here!
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