When it comes to food labels, low fat and reduced fat claims are not the same things. They have specific meanings as guided by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Low fat means a product contains 3 grams of fat or less per serving, and 30 percent or less of the total calories per serving are from fat. When looking at a main dish or meal, there can only be 3 grams or less of fat per 100 grams (3.5 ounces). If a product normally has a very small serving size, there can be no more than 3 grams of fat per 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of that item.

Reduced fat, on the other hand, refers to a product’s claim to contain at least 25 percent less fat than the original version. So, the “reduced” refers to the amount of fat that has been removed from the original product. However, just because the fat has been reduced from the original version does not necessarily make it low fat. This newer version may still have many more times the number of grams of fat per serving that officially qualifies as low fat.