Hi, this is my first post and I have a question concerning calories.
I have seen packages of food that say 100 calories per serving, 3 servings, but what if it doesn't specify per serving? For instance a food label says 3 servings per package and further down it says 100 calories, does that mean 300 calories or 100?
If someone could explain this to me I would really appreciate it.

Those listings are per serving, so the package would have 300 calories total.

A general rule of thumb (unless packaging specifies something else) is that the calories are always per serving.

Why? Marketing. Imagine if a big bag of chips had the total calories of the bag on it: Say 80 Calories per serving X 20 servings: 1600 Calories!

Since we are so calorie aware, packaging and labeling attempts to take the shock value out of the sticker.

Another reason is so you will be less likely to really count up the calories - you may think you are getting less calories but in reality since a single serving is usually nothing compared to what people really eat - like those chips - The company that puts them out doesn't want you to know that when you eat half a bag of those chips you have just devoured 800 calories because they figure you will read "Total Calories 80" which doesn't sound like that much until you start doing the math.

Yes they are tricky and yes they do play on the inherent laziness of human beings to not do math before eating.

David