a product indentified as"reduced calorie" means what?

Answer 1

A “low calorie” food means that the calories have been reduced; the energy in the food that can operate the body is reduced.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
"A calorie is a unit of measurement for energy. The unit's name is French and derives from the Latin calor (heat). In most fields, it has been replaced by the joule, the SI unit of energy. However, it remains in common use for the amount of energy obtained from food."

When a muscle operates it burns energy, which can be measured in calories. The burning operation consumes ATP (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate) and other chemicals like oxygen. If you think of your muscle like an internal combustion engine then the ATP is gasoline. The waste is lactic acid, and without oxygen the engine can't work.

Calories are then a measure of the energy consumed by burning that ATP.

On the Discovery Channel TV show Mythbusters they answered the question: Is the cereal you eat better than eating the box it came in? Based on the calories account alone they determined that the cereal has more calories and provides more energy than the energy from the box. To the human body sugar (specifically glucose) is the most efficient chemical to burn and make energy. Sugar is rare in the wild (only in fruits), so our bodies are adapted to crave it and to store any of it that isn’t burned by the body. That’s why foods with a high sugar content also have a high calorie content.

Another food item that the human body craves is fat. In the wild most animals run from the hunters, or run after the food they eat, so fat isn’t that common. It is an efficient way to store calories though so fat is good for our body; it is also used in some of the body’s functions. The problem is that if the fat isn’t consumed then the body stores it for when times are lean. We don’t have that problem now days (most people get more than enough calories to survive), but our bodies still have the original design from back when homo sapiens were still cavemen.

A calorie is a measure of energy burned. It has nothing to do with the weight of the food, the fat content, the sodium content, or the amount of cholesterol that it has. You can think of a calorie as a cup of gasoline that you use to make a car work. The problem is that if the body doesn't burn all those calories then it tries to stuff as much as it can into your fat cells, which turns into weight and an expanded waistline.

Answer 2

It has fewer calories than the original. Which doesn't help you much if the original has over a thousand calories to begin with. Read the actual nutrition panel, don't rely on marketing.

Answer 3

Usually, it means that they either removed carbohydrate (sugar, etc.,) fat, or both. They could have replaced those components with artificial ingredients. It also indicates that it is a knock-off of a different product they make.

Answer 4

They whipped air into it so you get less.

They used a false bottom so you get less.

They quadrupled the price.