20 cals = 1 syn rule when no free food allowance

mandy296

Silver Member
I've seen so many threads on here asking for syn values on non free food items, it made me think - is it worth having a sticky thread that explains this rule, with the "20 cals = 1 syn when no free food allowance" as the title.

After all, we now know its official as Slimming World have added the "Snackulator" to the official website which works on exactly that basis.

I know there will still be tons of people that take no notice of the various sub forums and stickies (mostly newbies until they get used to it), but it might help people realise that they can work it out for themselves. So much easier when you are at the supermarket and know that a quick sum in your head will give you the answer.

Just a thought
 
Yep I agree! Having just had a look through a few pages on here lots of questions could have been solved using this rule xx
 
these are all the foods that have NO free food allowance:

Alcoholic drinks
Biscuits, including cereal bars and savoury crackers
Bread & crispbreads
Breakfast cereals
Cakes & bakery items, e.g. carrot cake
Crisps & snacks
Dressings & dips, e.g. salsa, salad dressing
Fruit - canned, dried and stewed
Pastry products (sweet & savoury), e.g. salmon en croute, apple pie
Pizza
Puddings & desserts
Sandwich/deli fillers
Sandwiches and wraps
Sauces, e.g. jars of tomato-based pasta sauce
Soft drinks, including yogurt drinks fruit/vegetable juice and fruit smoothies
Soups, all varieties
Sweets & chocolates

so the 20 calories = 1 syn is accurate for any of those types of foods.

If however there is a free food allowance to an item then of course the syns calculator needs to be used, because various parts of the nutritional information are taking into account. i.e. calories, fat, protein and carbs as well as the weight listed for that nutritional information.

So many people forget to give this information when asking for the syns of a free food item.
 
Hi there, iv only just joined this forum. I did Slimming World last year, and lost 3 stone altogether. I had to leave for personal reasons, and have decided to try again, but just doing it at home.

Could someone please explain this non-free food rule please? Im a little confused. How do I know if it is a non-free food? Also, is there a certain amount involved? Totally confused, lol :-s

Thanks,

Victoria
 
Hi there, iv only just joined this forum. I did Slimming World last year, and lost 3 stone altogether. I had to leave for personal reasons, and have decided to try again, but just doing it at home.

Could someone please explain this non-free food rule please? Im a little confused. How do I know if it is a non-free food? Also, is there a certain amount involved? Totally confused, lol :-s

Thanks,

Victoria

This was just about sharing with people a simple way to work out the syns of various types of packaged foods without needing to use syns online, or the books etc. But it only works when those foods do not contain any FREE foods.

The free foods being, fruit and non starchy veg (on all plans), meat, fish, poultry etc on original/EE, and starchy veg/pasta/beans/rice etc on Green/EE - ie all the free foods you should have listed in your food optimising book.

So, for example, if you were in a shop and trying to work out the syns on a kit kat, and the calories were 110 cals - you would know that the kit-kat would be 5.5 syns as 110 divided by 20 is 5.5 - and a chocolate bar has no free foods.

If however, you were doing Original or EE and wanted to work out the syns for a pork sausage, and the sausage was 160 cals, you couldnt automatically assume that the syns would be 8 (160/20=8), because the pork ingredient would be a free food, so the actual syns would be reduced accordingly - and only the boffins at Slimming World HQ know how to do that!
 
Hi there, iv only just joined this forum. I did Slimming World last year, and lost 3 stone altogether. I had to leave for personal reasons, and have decided to try again, but just doing it at home.

Could someone please explain this non-free food rule please? Im a little confused. How do I know if it is a non-free food? Also, is there a certain amount involved? Totally confused, lol :-s

Thanks,

Victoria

I have listed all the items that have no free food allowance above, so you can use the 20 cals = 1 syn for those.

Anything else you need to use the syns calculator.
 
Burning Syns

Based on this loose rule, does this mean that if I burn off 20 calories in exercise I could be deleting a syn?
 
Muttick said:
Based on this loose rule, does this mean that if I burn off 20 calories in exercise I could be deleting a syn?

I love this suggestion!! Lol

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins
 
so do i!
 
This was just about sharing with people a simple way to work out the syns of various types of packaged foods without needing to use syns online, or the books etc. But it only works when those foods do not contain any FREE foods.

The free foods being, fruit and non starchy veg (on all plans), meat, fish, poultry etc on original/EE, and starchy veg/pasta/beans/rice etc on Green/EE - ie all the free foods you should have listed in your food optimising book.

So, for example, if you were in a shop and trying to work out the syns on a kit kat, and the calories were 110 cals - you would know that the kit-kat would be 5.5 syns as 110 divided by 20 is 5.5 - and a chocolate bar has no free foods.

If however, you were doing Original or EE and wanted to work out the syns for a pork sausage, and the sausage was 160 cals, you couldnt automatically assume that the syns would be 8 (160/20=8), because the pork ingredient would be a free food, so the actual syns would be reduced accordingly - and only the boffins at Slimming World HQ know how to do that!

This is really helpful thank you, my consultant hadn't mentioned anything about this so probably wouldn't have found out if it weren't for this forum :D
 
Can anyone please tell me if items are every more than 1 syn per 20 calories? Does anyone have any ideas on how to work out syns when mixing free foods?
 
No I cant see why anything would ever be more than 1 syn per 20 calories - why are you asking?

And sorry Im not sure what you mean by mixing free foods. If you mean how do you work out the syns when there is a free food allowance involved then there is no way to do it other than look things up online or work it out on the syn calculator if you are a SW member xx
 
Thanks PatchworkPuss. It's only my second week at the group tonight and they didn't mention anything about syns / calories calculation, so I feel a bit shy about bringing it up in case I'm not supposed to say anything. I was just checking nothing was greater syn value than that :)

You are right about understanding what I meant by mixing free foods. I was wondering how the boffins worked it out. Any ideas? Minus the calories of the free foods?
 
Thanks PatchworkPuss. It's only my second week at the group tonight and they didn't mention anything about syns / calories calculation, so I feel a bit shy about bringing it up in case I'm not supposed to say anything. I was just checking nothing was greater syn value than that :)

You are right about understanding what I meant by mixing free foods. I was wondering how the boffins worked it out. Any ideas? Minus the calories of the free foods?

They won't tell you in group about the 1 syn per 20 cals calculation as they sell books which give the same info! The formula is correct to what SW use on the snakulator! The only way to work out the syn value of something with a free food allowance, is to use to calculator on the website :) the search on here is great tho, as loads of questions have already been answered x
 
How does this work on things like I.e Kraft French salad dressing as it has no free food allowance but is free, also things like chickpea dhal where some brands are free and some are not?
 
How does this work on things like I.e Kraft French salad dressing as it has no free food allowance but is free, also things like chickpea dhal where some brands are free and some are not?

Some Fat free salad dressing is a free food, as are chickpeas so that's why you need to use the calculator :)
 
How does this work on things like I.e Kraft French salad dressing as it has no free food allowance but is free, also things like chickpea dhal where some brands are free and some are not?

There is still the potential for differences in recipes between two products - sainsbury chickpea dahl has oil in it and so is high in syns while asda for example is a lot lower in fat xx
 
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