Cooking spray is a great way to prevent food sticking to a pan or to a griddle. The spray creates a uniform coating of oil that allows you to use less oil than if you just poured it on. What is the result? This will allow you to save some serious calories. You can save a lot of calories.
Grace Clark-Hibbs RDN, says that cooking sprays cokoladna torta give you more control over how much oil you use. It’s easier to spray the entire surface of the cooktop with cooking sprays than with liquid oil. And, it uses less oil per unit. Cooking sprays are a great way to add convenience to your healthy diet or monitor your fat intake.
Nevertheless, dietitians will tell you one thing about these products. While they are often listed as having very little calories or fat on their nutrition labels, this is only due to the size of the product.
Lisa Young, RDN, PhD, author of Finally Full and Finally Slim, says that many people fall for these “no calorie” sprays. The problem is that the spray lasts only a fraction of a second, so you can’t measure how much.
Let’s face it, who really sprays their pan for so little time? (And who has the reflexes to do that? RDs suggest that these products can help you control portion size, but you should be careful about how long you spray. A spray that lasts about a third of an second is usually about 2.5 calories. Coating a pan takes about 3 to 4 seconds. That’s about 22.5 to 30 calories. Although it is not a perfect solution for all calorie needs, it is still significantly less than the 119 calories found in one tablespoon of olive oil.
Bottom line: A cooking spray can reduce the amount of oil you use, as long as you only spray it for five seconds. However, not all cooking sprays will be the same. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends olive oil, grapeseed oil, canola and avocado oils as the best cooking oils. AHA recommends that oils should have no trans fats and less saturated fat than 4 grams per tablespoon.
