Calculating fat content for the Swank and low fat diets
 

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

Good to have this information, Erika. But Dr. Swank did not go this far in his calculations, probably because his patients were not scientists or able to calculate these things, considering their usual debility from MS. It is valuable to know that skim milk is not as skim as we thought, but probably it would be skim enough for Swank. He's no longer with us, so I can't ask him. Most folks go looney contemplating cutting out as much fat as he recommended, let alone the austerity contemplated by the system you put forth. Most people will NOT do the Swank diet because it's what they think is very hard. I found it easy because I was almost already on it, due to long inability to really digest fat well--the only big change I made was to cut out those "cheat" days where I'd eat red meat twice in a row, usually because I was traveling or was in a location where I had to eat in restaurant, and the red meat was less threatening, fat-wise, than the cream sauce on the main offerings. (I have eaten in restaurants such as Appleby's where one could not find anything on the menu which was low fat or low salt, and my husband and I both got blood pressures over 200 that night because we just went ahead and ate what was there, because travel had made us tired and ravenous).
If anyone can do this system of calories, that's great. Me, can't. Too worn out and my eyes are dim. Hope your eyes are not dim. I'm getting new glasses, hope that helps.

I am sorry to butt in here but I have to make a suggestion and correction.

Fats have 9 cals /gram not 7.

One easy way to find out how much of each fat is in a food is to use this very useful site:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

here is a listing for raw Avocado:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/...-juices/1843/2

the fats are listed separately:
I use this site above to find inflammatory indexes, and also magnesium and potassium content of various foods.
Pay attention the to serving sizes....that is very important.
This site even has "processed" foods as well.

Right you are MrsD. Thanks for the correction.

Sorry about the misinformation everyone; cog-fog didn't seem to be too bad when I wrote that (It was a good day), so didn't recognize the error...and I'm a nutritionist! These are numbers that I have dealt with frequently at work for several years.

Yikes! Shows how tricky relying on memory for stuff like that has become. Thus I seldom debate with anyone who claims that I am in error; because they're probbly right.

Now then, does anyone want me to balance their cheque book or fool around with their investment calculations?
We have to laugh at this.

With love, Erika

I've been on Swank diet for ten years or more and swear by it. I think it helps.