Calorie free? Huh?

thinlizzie10 · 02-12-2010, 05:38 PM

Yesterday in the vitamin type things aisle I saw a section containing products made by Walden Farms that all said calorie free. There were caramel sauces, chocolate sauces, peanut butters, mayonnaise... tons of traditionally high calorie foods, whose labels all said 0 calories per serving. How is this possible? I realize since everything they sell is a sauce that they probably use some kind of artificial flavoring to flavor a lump of nutritionless goop, but how can all of this be 0 calorie? Our bodies simply don't process these "foods" at all and they just pass through us? They must have some effect on us - what is it?

Meg · 02-12-2010, 05:45 PM

Anything that is less than 5 calories a "serving" can be called 0 calorie. So it can have a few calories and still legally say it's 0 calorie.

Walden Farms manages it because there is no food substance in their concoctions. It's all chemicals, artificial flavors, artificial colors, and artificial sweetners. And every Walden Farm product I've ever tried is some of the nastiest stuff I've ever put in my mouth! I've never made it past one serving of any of it before it went in the trash.

I know some people like the products and obviously the company is still in business, but my gosh, give me real food that tastes like food, please!

charlottekelsey · 02-12-2010, 05:47 PM

UGH walden farms tastes like nothing that you should put anywhere NEAR your mouth. I was soooo excited when I bought their stuff...until I gagged on their "marshmellow" cream and "peanut" spread...more like rubbery wattery metallic tasting crap. EAT. if you eat too much diet food you are just going to end up binging on it because it's "healthier"

Shannon in ATL · 02-12-2010, 07:32 PM

Yeah, I've tried a lot of the Walden Farms and they are all pretty icky.

Thighs Be Gone · 02-12-2010, 07:35 PM

I have yet to find any of their products I can enjoy. If you find something decent, let us know.

So far, my faves are raw veggies and Shiratake noodles in the (almost) no calorie category.

utgirl09 · 02-12-2010, 08:12 PM

Yes, deception with food labeling. Even if you look at a can of cooking spray such as Pam it says that one serving is 0 calories. We all know that is not true. They use 1/3 second spray as a serving size so than can claim a serving size has no calories.

Mariella · 02-12-2010, 08:38 PM

I tried the Walden Farms chocolate sauce and to me, it actually tasted better than the Hershey's Sugar Free Chocolate Milk stuff in the squeeze bottle and Smuckers Sugar Free Hot Fudge sauce. The way I used it was to simply drizzle a little bit on vanilla frozen yogurt.

I also bought their Ranch dressing and their Blue Cheese dressing. The ranch I thought was horrible. The Blue Cheese was ok, again, if I drizzled a bit or mixed some with yogurt. Just dumped on the salad, no, it tasted kinda bad. But a little drizzle just gave enough blue cheese flavor. It reminded me of the old fashioned non-chunky type blue cheese dressing that they served in restaurants years ago. Wasn't so great that I'd go buy it again, though.

I'd rather just use balsamic vinegar and a spritz of olive oil, and maybe sprinkle a small bit of feta on my salad.