Are condiments such as yellow mustard & Tabasco really zero calories as they say?...even if you use a lot of them?

Tabasco Chipotle flavor is so good it makes me question the zero calories, especially with sugar in the ingredient list.

Are condiments such as yellow mustard & Tabasco really zero calories as they say?...even if you use a lot of them?

Tabasco Chipotle flavor is so good it makes me question the zero calories, especially with sugar in the ingredient list.

do you use enough of them to be worried? just normal variation in the foods you eat (e.g. sugar content varying from one apple to the next) combined with variation in sizes of some foods (e.g. a 150g apple vs a 160g apple) probably account for deviations of 20 or more calories when you total up a whole day. So lets say you get 6 calories from the Tabasco, I don't think it's enough to really worry over. Same with the mustard. I mean, surely it must have SOME sort of nutrition (they are mustard SEEDS after all). Aside from the sugary condiments like ketchup or bbq sauce, i don't worry too much about condiments.

If you're that bothered by it, maybe you could try making your own condiments. that could be fun too, especially things like salsas, etc. then you'd know exactly what you're eating.

The condiments themselves contribute nothing substantial to your body because most of the ingredients are undigestible therefore pass right through you (gross). The problem that comes with the zero calorie fare is that they fool your body into thinking that it is consuming nutrients and consequently performs its normal systems in that type of environment, for example the storage of fat when your body receives, or thinks it's receiving, glucose.

1 tsp of your average yellow mustard has 3 calories, which is below the 5-calorie minimum required to report by the FDA. 1 cup of it has 167 calories.

1 tsp tabasco sauce has 1/2 calorie, 1 ounce has 3, so 1 cup has ~48.

So yes, condiments usually have calories, it's just that they have very few "per normal serving" and hence are legally allowed to list it as 0. Just like Splenda actually has calories (because of the maltodextrin filler), but with a "standard serving" only 1/2 tsp or 1 tsp, it has "virtually no" calories in a serving.