Study finds lite restaurant meals pack more calories than stated

For those of us trying to diet away holiday excesses, every calorie counts. We depend on the accuracy of frozen meal nutrition labeling and the information restaurants provide about their meals, but according to a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetics Association by researchers at Tufts University, the caloric content of these foods is often well above stated values; in one case, double the kilo-calories (commonly referred to as calories.)

The study examined the energy content (in calories) of a variety of foods from sit-down and fast food restaurants and frozen convenience meals from the grocery store.