The David Protein Bar Lawsuit: Calories, Fat, and the Truth About How Food Labels Work

By: Marc Lobliner, IFBB Pro

The internet loves a scandal, especially when it involves a trendy protein bar and a lawsuit claiming the calories are “wrong.” Headlines are flying around saying the David Protein Bar contains nearly double the calories listed on the label. According to lab tests, the bar allegedly contains around 270 calories instead of the labeled 150. Sounds outrageous, right? Sounds like someone got caught red handed.

Not so fast.

Before we grab the pitchforks and start screaming “food fraud,” we need to actually understand the science behind calories, digestion, and how food labels are calculated. Because the reality is the lawsuit may say more about misunderstanding nutrition science than it does about wrongdoing.

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YOUR BODY IS NOT A FURNACE

The lawsuit relies heavily on a lab method called bomb calorimetry. That sounds fancy and scientific because it is. In this method, food is literally burned inside a sealed chamber and the heat released from combustion is measured. That heat output is used to calculate the food’s theoretical energy.

Here is the problem.

Your body does not work like a combustion engine. You are not a furnace. You do not ignite food and extract every ounce of theoretical energy from it. Your digestive system uses enzymes, bacteria, and absorption processes to break food down, and anything that cannot be digested simply passes through.

This is why the number of calories a calorimeter detects is not always the number of calories your body absorbs.

Take fiber for example. If you burn fiber in a calorimeter it releases energy. But humans cannot digest most fiber. That means the body extracts very little usable energy from it. Because of that, the FDA assigns fiber a lower caloric value than the theoretical energy measured in a lab.

This isn’t a loophole. This is literally how food labeling has worked for decades.

THE INGREDIENT EVERYONE IS FREAKING OUT ABOUT

The ingredient driving the controversy is something called EPG, short for esterified propoxylated glycerol. Sounds like a chemistry exam, but the concept is simple. EPG is designed to function like fat in food products while being poorly absorbed by the body.

Normal dietary fat provides nine calories per gram because the body digests and absorbs it efficiently. EPG is different. Its structure prevents digestive enzymes from breaking it down effectively, which means most of it passes through the digestive tract without being absorbed.

Because of this, the FDA allows EPG to be labeled at about 0.7 calories per gram instead of the nine calories per gram associated with traditional fats.

Now think about what happens when a lab burns that ingredient during a calorimetry test. The machine detects potential energy because the ingredient can still burn under combustion conditions. But your digestive system cannot extract that same energy during digestion.

In other words, the calorimeter counts energy your body will never actually use.

That difference alone can dramatically inflate the calorie numbers detected in lab testing.

THIS IS NOT NEW SCIENCE

We have been dealing with this exact issue for years. Fiber, resistant starch, sugar alcohols, and certain fat substitutes all contain theoretical energy that is not fully absorbed by the body.

If you burned these ingredients in a calorimeter, the machine would report higher energy values than what your body actually metabolizes. That is why the FDA relies on metabolizable energy calculations rather than combustion energy when determining nutrition labels.

Protein is counted as four calories per gram. Carbohydrates are counted as four calories per gram. Fat is counted as nine calories per gram. Fiber is adjusted because it is not fully digested.

These standardized calculations exist because the human body is not a laboratory furnace.

THE REAL QUESTION IS NOT CALORIES

Now that does not mean the lawsuit is completely pointless. The real legal argument may revolve around labeling interpretation rather than calorie science.

EPG behaves like fat in food formulations. It contributes texture and mouthfeel similar to traditional fats, but the body does not absorb it the same way. The question courts may eventually examine is how consumers interpret that difference.

If a product contains several grams of a fat-like ingredient but lists lower fat numbers due to reduced absorption, some consumers may argue the label is confusing.

That is not a calorie problem. That is a labeling clarity debate.

THE BIGGER PROBLEM NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT

The real irony in this entire situation is that the food industry has spent years developing ingredients that reduce metabolizable calories while preserving taste and texture.

Consumers want high protein foods with fewer calories. They want snacks that taste good but do not destroy their diet. That demand has led to innovation with fibers, sugar alcohols, resistant starches, and fat substitutes.

But the moment a product successfully reduces absorbed calories, suddenly people accuse it of cheating the calorie system.

You cannot have it both ways.

If you want lower calorie foods that still taste good, the industry has to use ingredients that alter digestion and absorption. That is exactly what these technologies were designed to do.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The claim that the David Protein Bar secretly contains nearly double the calories is misleading because it relies on combustion energy rather than metabolizable energy. Bomb calorimetry measures the heat released when food is burned. Nutrition labels measure the calories the human body actually absorbs.

Those are two completely different things.

This lawsuit may eventually become a debate about labeling language and consumer perception. But from a metabolic and nutritional standpoint, the science behind the calorie calculation is not nearly as scandalous as the headlines make it sound.

And if this whole situation proves anything, it is that the biggest misunderstanding in nutrition today might not be calories in versus calories out.

It might be how calories are actually measured in the first place.