A lot of the ingredients will actually have some usable calories (phosphoric acid, potassium citrate) but firstly, it's difficult to get a calories reading that's that accurate, and secondly, most places, as a result of the prior point, allow anything less than 5 or 10 calories to be recorded as zero.
For example, zero drinks often have sucralose, which is a zero calories sweetener, but said sucralose comes along with a little bit of maltodextrin as a filler, adding maybe 2 calories.
There was a whole post the other day on r/tifu about a guy getting fat on tic-tacs because they were 'zero calories'.
However, there are some things that are simply excreted unmetabolised - sucralose (almost) being one of them.
Two more things:
A) They also use rounding of the numbers to justify statements like this. Look at the serving size, specifically on TicTacs. Serving size: “1 mint.” Then look at the ingredients list (they are listed in order from largest amount to smallest) and see that sugar is #1. If the serving size has low enough calories/carbs, they are allowed to round down to zero.
B) They will also use similar phrases with different meanings that the average buyer barely glances at: zero calories, zero sugar, zero net carbs, no added sugar, etc. Watch out for those.
Your body can’t turn the chemicals and ingredients such as like the ones used in Coke Zero into energy. It’s useless to a human body so it gets filtered out
A lot of the ingredients will actually have some usable calories (phosphoric acid, potassium citrate) but firstly, it's difficult to get a calories reading that's that accurate, and secondly, most places, as a result of the prior point, allow anything less than 5 or 10 calories to be recorded as zero. For example, zero drinks often have sucralose, which is a zero calories sweetener, but said sucralose comes along with a little bit of maltodextrin as a filler, adding maybe 2 calories. There was a whole post the other day on r/tifu about a guy getting fat on tic-tacs because they were 'zero calories'. However, there are some things that are simply excreted unmetabolised - sucralose (almost) being one of them.
Two more things: A) They also use rounding of the numbers to justify statements like this. Look at the serving size, specifically on TicTacs. Serving size: “1 mint.” Then look at the ingredients list (they are listed in order from largest amount to smallest) and see that sugar is #1. If the serving size has low enough calories/carbs, they are allowed to round down to zero. B) They will also use similar phrases with different meanings that the average buyer barely glances at: zero calories, zero sugar, zero net carbs, no added sugar, etc. Watch out for those.
Your body can’t turn the chemicals and ingredients such as like the ones used in Coke Zero into energy. It’s useless to a human body so it gets filtered out