Do you trust food labels?

Generally, they are fairly consistent. One brands green beans for the
same size serving might say 20 cal and another 30. I suppose this
could just be a rounding-off phenomenon. Then there are lentils. One
package of lentils is organic but I didn't get the brand name, another
is a store brand of lentils (non-organic) for a quarter the price (Wal-
mart GV brand) They look identical in size and shape...yet one quarter
cup of one which is identified as 35g. on both packages is listed as
150 cal per serving on the organic and 80 cal. on the other. A third
package I say with a Spanish or Italian sounding name...Goya, I think,
listed the same quarter-cup size lentils as 70 cal, although these
appeared slightly larger, and since larger varieties of anything
increase the empty air space, the 70 seems to agree with the 80 fairly
closely. Something is wrong.

I buy the cheapo brand and have the label in front of me. Now here is
the interesting thing. The package also lists the grams of fat,
protein and carbs. It list 0 fat, which is probably right, although
there is obviously a small amount of fat in every food under the sun,
but it is probably half a gram or so and perhaps they rounded it off
correctly. There are also 20g. of carbs total, and 10 grams of protein
total in that 1/4 cup serving. The fiber, by the way is 11 grams. Now,
one should be able to figure the calories for themselves provided the
other info is right. For example, 35 gram serving minus the 11 grams
of fiber with no calories gives 24 calories of carbs plus protein. In
this case, since carbs and protein both have 4 cal. per gram (fat has
9 cal per gram by the way), we should be able to just multiply 24 X 4.
We get 96 calories. Well, heck this is not 70 calories. Another way to
figure calories, provided the info is correct once again is to just
total the listed carbs plus the listed protein first. In this case it
is 20 + 10 which is 30, but 30 X 4 = 120. Something is way off on the
labels. dkw