Dean of Menands, NY, writes:
Hannaford's Butter Flavored Cooking Spray is palinly labeled "For Fat-Free Cooking" on the can. The problem is, the serving size on the nutrition label is so ridiculously small, that the calories per serving works out to 0.

A serving size is a 1/4 second spray. Ridiculous! 557 servings in a 6-oz can. I know there is fat in the product because the first ingredient listed is Canola Oil. I just wanted to know how much fat.

I called Hannaford's 800 number and was only able to get a little more info about nutrition, but still nothing useful. They referred me to International Home Foods who manufacturers the product. I called IHF and spoke to a gentleman who was able to give me some reasonbly useful nutrition info. He told me to multiply the servings per container by .266 to get the number of grams of fat in the entire can. After a few more questions he also admitted that, yes, the spray is 100% fat.

After doing the math, it works out that a single 6-oz. can contains 1333 calories and 148 grams of fat! The entire can accounts for 139 seconds of spraying time, which means (roughly) more than 1 gram of fat per second of spray! I think it's high time the nutrition labeling gets an overhaul. There are too many loopholes which allow manufacturers to deceive the consumer regarding nutrition content.

In this case, they told me that because it is an aerosal spray, legally they can list the serving size as 1/3 of a second. This flies in the face of common sense. I've been using butter spray to flavor my popcorn for years. No more.

My ultimate question is, can't this be considered false advertising? The label on the can clearly states, "For Fat Free Cooking" when, in fact, it is 100% fat! Can ANYTHING be done? Thank you.

Dean is a smart guy. If more consumers read the labels carefully, products like this would disappear quickly. Whether the preposterous no-fat claim constitutes deceptive advertising is a close call, but certainly it deserves to be brought to the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which keeps an eye on such things.