The Skinny on 'Lean Beef' and 'Low-Fat Milk'

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We started a corporate wellness program at my company and the buzz this morning is all about today's nutritional tidbit. In a nutshell, this is what we discovered:

Ground beef with 10% fat is actually 10% fat by weight before cooking. ...The reality is that by calories, ground beef with 10% fat by weight is about 48% fat by calories. 110 calories out of 200 come from fat!

The same trickery occurs with lots of products. You may think that 2% milk is a great choice. Certainly, it's better than whole milk, but 2% milk is 2% fat BY WEIGHT, NOT BY CALORIES. 2% milk actually contains 5 grams of fat per serving - 45 calories out of 120 come from fat. That's 38% fat, not 2%. This may surprise you, but whole milk contains only 3.25% fat by weight (not even twice as much as 2%)- but 48% by calories!

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