A bride has expressed her confusion over the caloric intake of her save-the-date envelopes.
Chloe Williams recently took to TikTok to show off her sealed save-the-date invitations with text across the screen that read: “I just found out I consumed over 1,000 cal in one sitting by licking envelopes.”
However, she quickly acknowledged her mistake in the caption, where she admitted to looking at the calories for British stamps instead of envelopes.
“I tried a sponge and it didn’t seal very well…” Williams’ caption read. “Yes, I did accidentally look at British Stamps cals instead of envelopes.”
Her video went on to receive more than one million views, with many people taking to the comments to admit that they had no idea licking an envelope - or a stamp - counted as any type of caloric intake.
“Just imagine entering envelopes into your calorie tracker app,” one comment read, while another person wrote: “Not me googling ‘is there calories in envelope glue.’”
“I feel like for some things we can pretend that calories don’t exist for it like ain’t no way envelopes count,” a third commenter pointed out.
Other commenters were curious why Williams didn’t come up with some other method to seal the envelopes.
“So that’s why there’s envelope wetting sticks…” a commenter told her.
“I just run my finger under water and put it on the sticky…” another person explained in the comments.
However, according to Williams, she tried to sponge trick but found it didn’t work as well as she’d hoped. “I tried the sponge trick first and it didn’t work,” she said in the comments.
According to an Atlas Obscura report, the adhesive on a US envelope contains around 1.7 calories per gram, which is one-tenth of a calorie per lick. This led to some commenters questioning exactly how many people she was inviting to her wedding based on the 1,000 calories she said she consumed.
“This would equate to 10,000 envelopes,” one person wrote in the comments.
“That’s like 100,000 envelopes, they’re only 0.1 calorie each,” another commenter pointed out.
Meanwhile, British stamps contain 5.9 calories, according to The Guardian, but they don’t need to be licked anymore because they are now self-adhesive, just like a sticker.
Nutritionist Stephanie Di Figlia-Peck of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, told People that the glue on envelopes is called gum arabic and is also non-toxic and gluten free.
She told the outlet that, no matter how many envelopes are licked in one sitting, the calorie content would still be “insignificant.”
“I would never want to promote that if someone licks this [adhesive] substance they will gain weight. In general, calorie balance is not one day; it’s over the course of several days. It’s the dietary pattern that makes the difference in whether someone gains or loses weight,” she told People.
However, she did note that if licking envelopes is a common practice it could eventually cause digestive problems. “The surface of our tongue has microorganisms, and we don’t want to alter the composition of our oral microbiome. So anything in excess is not promoted because we would not want to alter that as it affects our gastrointestinal tract,” she said.
“Your tongue and mouth will thank you for it, as we want to maintain the normal integrity of those surfaces and areas. Remember, our tongue and mouth provide a first line barrier to our whole gastrointestinal system, and keeping all parts healthy will help keep all body systems functioning optimally.”
As for what she plans to do for her actual invites, Williams said she ordered envelope wetting sticks for the formal invites.
