Food Labels

[xoxoxoBruce]

Been some noise about food labeling recently, trying to cut down the obfuscation and make them understandable to the unwashed rabble. They take polls and people say overwhelmingly they want this, although I wonder how many would really use it.

Unlike clodfobble who has to fine tooth comb everything for her kids, or Ortho who actually understands much of what’s there now and cares, I don’t get into it very much except for things I eat a lot of on a regular basis.

After a trip to an artificial flower and home decorating outlet, what come out of the bag is what I assumed was mini-pretzels dipped in pale blue chocolate for Easter. My experience with chocolate of any weird color is yuck. But they turn out to be labeled, ”Pretzel, Mini, Blueberry Yogurt Covered”. Hmm, now I’m curious…

I wonder how many calories? OK, 190, 70 from fat.
That’s pretty high how big is a serving? Um, 40 grams.
Well that’s no help, how many servings in the bag? Variable.
Alright, I’ll just divide the weight of the whole bag by 40 and I’ll have an approximation of a serving.
Ha ha ha, silly boy… the bag weighs 0.60 lbs.

It can be done but it certainly is a lot of bother unless you’re a math and conversion whiz like Monster, most people will just eat them. Of course this kind of thing is often gobbled in the car for hunger pains developed on a shop-till-you-drop run, or to shut the whining kids up.

Of course you wouldn’t want to eat many of these, aside from the fat/calories, the list of ingredients would send a chemistry professor back to the books.

[glatt]

The rounding off to the nearest gram is also a problem. 0.4 grams is reported as 0 grams. So if a company chooses its serving size correctly, it can report that it contains 0 grams of fat.

A butter company, for example, could say their butter (which is 99% fat in reality) has 0 grams of fat, as long as they said their serving size is half a gram.

[Clodfobble]

Another thing most people don't know about: in the list of ingredients, if an ingredient comprises less than 2% of the product, they don't technically have to list it. That's why you often see lists of ingredients that end with "Contains less than 2% of the following..." They're basically saying, 'see, we don't have to put these things on here, but we are because we're good guys.' All you have to do is look at the number of things that come after that line to realize how much crap other companies might be putting in without telling you. Especially food or ingredients that are sourced from foreign countries.

[xoxoxoBruce]

A list of additives that don't sound very tasty.

Acetone, Acetone peroxides, Aluminum ammonium sulfate, Aluminum calcium silicate, Aluminum nicotinate, Aluminum potassium sulfate, Aluminum sodium sulfate, etc, etc, etc...

[Griff]

To be fair, if you were doing any soldering in your lower intestine it'd come clean.

[Gravdigr]

See, there's that.

[Sundae]

It sounds like our food labelling, although by no means perfect, is easier to read and comprehend than American labels.

Food values are shown per 100g as well as per serving size.

This helps compare like for like across different manufacturers, but also gives an idea of how much you'll be eating. I use it most commonly when buying soup for the first time. I say push to their idea that half a tin is a serving; this is my main meal. But even with my poor maths I can easily double amounts. As well as knowing I won't look at that soup again because OMG look at the salt content!

We also have a "traffic lights" coding on the front of ready meals. Green is good, yellow is okay but watch what else you are eating that day and red is this better just be an occasional treat sweetheart. It's a useful immediate reference that starts the process of checking the details. I think the categories are fat, saturates, salt, sugar, each will be one colour. Actually I think some producers include calories too.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Who determines the red, green, or yellow?

[Aliantha]

I use the labels on food all the time to determine just how much crap is in them, particularly sugars. I don't buy very much prepackaged food, but when I do, I like to know just how bad it is.

I also like to know the origin of the food we consume.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Who determines the red, green, or yellow?

It's an agreed Govt standard I think. Percentage per 100g.
As I said, it's very much an immediate visual aid. If you have an interest/ concern you will always check the details.

Salt reduction has become consumer driven since this came in for example.
And I knew for years that things like chicken salad sandwiches (how healthy-sounding!) we're in fact loaded with salt and fat. Baked beans were sugar heavy. Tomato soup had salt & sugar up the old whatsit.

The food industry and their lobbyists do have some clout, but because we have the NHS they can't have everything their own way. The Govt say yes, yes, food is worth loads of money to us, but guess what? We pay loads and loads and loads out because some poor saps thought tomato soup & bread was a healthy lunch choice, only to find they might as well have had two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please.