Labels are misleading with respect to the listing of fat content, so knowing how to calculate the true fat content of foods and not rely on the figures as presented on the nutrient label is valuable.

This is important to know for everyone who would like to follow a low fat diet or more specifically, the Swank diet; which limits dairy products to less than 1% fat and restricts all other fats.

For example, what is sold as 1% skim milk is actually up to 15% fat. Similarly, a lot of low fat or fat free products actually may contain a fair amount of fat.
So how do the producers and marketers get away with the misrepresentation? They use measurements according to weight rather than calorie portion on the label.

To correctly calculate fat content, the amount of fat in grams must be converted to percentage of caloric value; as this is how the body deals with fats, carbs and proteins...not by their weight (grams).

It is fairly easy to do this conversion.
Fat contains 7 calories/gram, while protein and carbohydrate each contain 4 calories/gram.
To calculate the fat content of a product, just multiply the grams of fat/serving listed on the label by 7. That gives you the number of calories from fat/serving.
Then divide the fat calories by the total number of calories/serving and multiply by 100. The result of that calculation provides the actual percentage of fat/serving.

Example: A product claims that it contains 3.5 % fat. The product's 'Nutritional Facts' label says that the calories/serving is 120. The fat content is listed at 6 grams, which when multiplied by 7 equals 42 (calories/serving).
Thus 42 (calories in fat) divided by 120 (calories/serving), then multiplied by 100, reveals that the product is actually 35% fat.

Similarly,1% milk is actually closer to 15% fat and products claiming to be less than 1% (fat free), often contain around 10% fat when calculated correctly.

To estimate the total amount of fat in one's diet, simply add up all the calories consumed in a day as well as all the grams of fat (converted to caloric value by multiplying by 7). Divide the fat calories by the total number of calories/day and multiply by 100 to calculate the percentage of fat consumed in a day.

With love, Erika