|
Health Center Home
Fat-Free vs. Regular Calorie Comparison
You can lose weight by eating fewer calories and by increasing your physical activity.
Reducing the amount of total fat and saturated fat that you eat is one way to limit your overall calorie intake.
However, eating fat-free or reduced-fat foods isn't always the answer to weight loss. A fat-free food is not necessarily
low in calories; in fact, it could be higher in calories because of added sugars. Calories may also be added when you eat more of
the reduced-fat or fat-free food than you would of the regular item. For example, if you eat twice as many fat-free cookies as you would
regular cookies you actually have increased your overall calorie intake. The following list of foods and their reduced-fat varieties demonstrates
that just because a product is fat-free, it doesn't mean that it is "calorie-free."
Fat-Free or Reduced Fat |
Regular |
|
Calories |
|
Calories |
Reduced-fat peanut butter,
2 T |
187 |
Regular peanut butter , 2 T |
191 |
Reduced-fat chocolate chip
cookies, 3 cookies (30 g) |
118 |
Regular chocolate chip
cookies, 3 cookies (30 g) |
142 |
Fat-free fig cookies, 2
cookies (30 g) |
102 |
Regular fig cookies, 2
cookies (30 g) |
111 |
Nonfat vanilla frozen
yogurt (<1% fat), 1/2 cup |
100 |
Regular whole milk vanilla
frozen yogurt (3-4% fat), 1/2 cup |
104 |
Light vanilla ice cream (7%
fat), 1/2 cup |
111 |
Regular vanilla ice cream
(11% fat), 1/2 cup |
133 |
Fat-free caramel topping, 2
T |
103 |
Caramel topping, homemade
with butter, 2 T |
103 |
Low-fat granola cereal,
approx. 1/2 cup (55 g) |
213 |
Regular
granola cereal, approx. 1/2 cup (55 g) |
257 |
Low-fat blueberry muffin, 1
small (2 1/2 inch) |
131 |
Regular blueberry muffin, 1
small (2 1/2 inch) |
138 |
Baked tortilla chips, 1 oz. |
113 |
Regular tortilla chips, 1
oz. |
143 |
Low-fat cereal bar, 1 bar
(1.3 oz.) |
130 |
Regular
cereal bar, 1 bar (1.3 oz.) |
140 |
Source: FDA and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Nutrient data taken from Nutrient Data System for Research, Nutrition Coordinating Center, University of Minnesota
Adapted by Editorial Staff,n July 2006
Last update, August 2008
|
|
|