Dividing cals by 20

slim4son

Full Member
Hi guys thought I would pre warn you I ask ed my sw leader about this she said this is not the case and does not give a true idea of syn value sorry but I know a lot of examples are given as this when asking values of syn xxxx
 
slim4son said:
Hi guys thought I would pre warn you I ask ed my sw leader about this she said this is not the case and does not give a true idea of syn value sorry but I know a lot of examples are given as this when asking values of syn xxxx

I think you'll find alot of people say it's a rough guide anyway! It only applies where there is no free food allowance tho

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It certainly isn't any substitute for looking things up either online or in the books (or asking here), but as a quick calculation when that is not possible, and when there is no free food involved (chocolate, sweets, for instance) it is quite handy.
 
It is accurate for anything WITHOUT a free food allowance - which covers, sweets, snacks, crisps, biscuits, cakes, icecream, sauces, tinned soup, pizza, pastry covered items etc.

If your food item however qualifies for a free food allowance, then you must use the syns calculator.

So if someone is asking for the syns of a bar of chocolate for instance, or the syns in a jar of sauce/tin of soup etc then it is right to say it will be 1 syn for every 20 calories, as non of those items qualify for a free food allowance.

If however someone asked for the syns in lamb shanks with gravy or a savoury rice or a fat free flavoured yoghurt etc. Then these would need to be checked on syns online or the syns calculator, as they do have a free food allowance.
 
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Hi guys thought I would pre warn you I ask ed my sw leader about this she said this is not the case and does not give a true idea of syn value sorry but I know a lot of examples are given as this when asking values of syn xxxx

BritMum is absolutely correct and this is exactly how the snackulator on the SW works.

SW consultants may deny this for fear people won't join classes or buy syn directories in the belief they can work out all syns themselves. That is not true however because as said, products with free foods in the main ingredients cannot be worked out using this calculation.
 
Yes, it is bang-on for foods without any 'free' element. I cannot find one example (so far) where is it contradicted in the syns guide.

They like to keep these formulas secret! I knew the ww points formula for both UK and US points at one point but there is no way this would have been given out in class! Thankfully, the SW one much easier!

Hell even if it isn't exactly right I'm still going to use that.
 
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I had this discussion with my C this week.

An alpen light bar has 70 cals, buy only 3 syns? Not sure if there any free allowance there though?

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I had this discussion with my C this week.

An alpen light bar has 70 cals, buy only 3 syns? Not sure if there any free allowance there though?

Sent from Laura's iPhone using MiniMins

If you look at the nutritional info for each bar they are (Kcals):

Summer Fruits 61
Choc Orange 62
Apple & Sultana 59
Choc Fudge 63

So they are all 3 syns based on the 20 Kcal rule.

I guess they are rounded up to the nearest whole ten number for the front of the pack. Not sure that there would be enough of the free stuff to make any difference to the syns.
 
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What are people talking about when they calculate a ready meal? Eg ... something like a chicken and bacon in a tomato based sauce that comes to 300 calories (totally made this example up but hopefully you get my gist) and they say 15 syns minus free allowance so 9 syns altogether???

Confused.com :confused: I take it this is not an accurate way of working it out???
 
What are people talking about when they calculate a ready meal? Eg ... something like a chicken and bacon in a tomato based sauce that comes to 300 calories (totally made this example up but hopefully you get my gist) and they say 15 syns minus free allowance so 9 syns altogether???

Confused.com :confused: I take it this is not an accurate way of working it out???

What you are thinking of is when the free food is used as a HEB. So you can use the chicken in the dish for your HEB on a green day and deduct 6 syns because that is generally how many syns a HE is worth.
 
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