8 ms·

The obvious next question then is how the protein and carbohydrate content is measured. That sounds like it would require more difficult analytical methods than

The obvious next question then is how the protein and carbohydrate content is measured. That sounds like it would require more difficult analytical methods than bomb calorimetry and might not be worth the time and expense if it were not for the fact that those need to be reported separately on the label anyway. Brief searching suggests that proteins are measured with a nitrogen content test and fats are determined by mixing the food with a non-polar solvent to see how much dissolves. Carbohydrates seem trickier and I haven't found a great explanation. Water solubility might work once the other components are removed.

cma 10y ago
The protein test was famously faked with melamine in the Chinese dog-food scandal that killed dogs and resulted in a recall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls
- mysterypie 10y ago
  I was following that case closely back in 2007 because of my pet (thankfully not affected). An astonishing thing I learned was that practically every brand of cat food and dog food in North America is/was manufactured by a single company called Menu Foods in Streetsville, Ontario, Canada. The pet food "brands" don't have their own factories. They all contract it out to the same place. A few journalists remarked on this secret fact that came out because of the recall. We agonize over which brand is healthier for our cats and dogs, but it's all an illusion. The majority of US and Canadian pet food is made at one factory with the same basic animal ingredients, same quality control, same employees, and the same machines. Maybe they adjust the proportions slightly and tweak the flavors. Then they slap on different labels like Purina, Iams, Royal Canin, whatever. It's saddening to learn that we really don't have as much choice as we think. I'm much more skeptical and questioning than the average person, and yet I assumed that the pet food's "brand name" somehow made a difference.
  - bluedino 10y ago
    >> The majority of US and Canadian pet food is made at one factory This is true if you're talking about wet pet food - there are other makers of wet pet food and dry pet food (which is over half the market) is made by other companies. Mars/Nestle (the same people who make candy...)
  - spoofball 10y ago
    the majority of pet food is meat not fit for human consumption. [1] if you aren't feeding your pet meat that you eat, it's living on extreme crap. [1]: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-industry-exposed/unfit-for-humans-legal-for-dog-food/ http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-industry-exposed/unfi...
    - sukilot 10y ago
      People like fancy food. That doesn't make non-fancy food extreme crap.
      - thinkloop 10y ago
        "not fit for human consumption" is not a synonym for "unfancy". It describes the processes involved to arrive at the final food. Filet mignon can be unfit for human consumption, while pigs' feet can be processed correctly and be fit for consumption.
        thinkloop 10y ago
        Check this out: http://www.alive.com/health/fit-for-human-consumption/ http://www.alive.com/health/fit-for-human-consumption/ Animals that are sick or unhealthy are separated from the herd and slaughtered independently, then sold for pet food and livestock feed. This was partly what fostered the mad cow issue. There is higher risk for illness with non-human grade food. If you don't want higher risk for your pet than child, you shouldn't feed the off-the-shelf non-human grade food.
        10y ago
- Someone 10y ago
  The linked-to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal was way more scandalous. When bought in bulk, milk isn’t priced by the liter because it is too easy to water it down. Instead, it is priced by kilograms of protein. Measuring protein is hard, so they measure nitrogen instead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjeldahl_method#Conversion_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjeldahl_method#Conversion_fac..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumas_method#Advantages_and_limitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumas_method#Advantages_and_li...). Melamine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine) is cheap, rich in nitrogen, and, unfortunately, poisonous.
  - Scarblac 10y ago
    This scandal is the reason Dutch supermarkets still limit the amount of baby formula that can be bought per customer, so many Chinese trying to buy up large amounts that there was a risk many stores would run out.
    - germanier 10y ago
      Hong Kong even restricts export of baby formula (and smugglers are regularly arrested on the border to mainland).
      - eru 10y ago
        I always wonder why they don't just order more from the factory and sell to the Chinese? (Or raise prices.) Why don't they want to make more money?
        jacalata 10y ago
        I don't know if the factories are manufacturing enough, or capable of ramping up to do so. It's a huge increase in demand. I heard of similar problems in Australia.
        10y ago
- lostlogin 10y ago
  The same cheat was used in milk in China in '08. Baby formula was effected and babies died. Many companies were doing it and something like 50,000 babies were hospitalised. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
  - z3t4 10y ago
    Considering how cheap protein is, you must be the greediest person ever to fake baby formula.
    - powertower 10y ago
      Also this is interesting... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil
    - sukilot 10y ago
      Are these Chinese companies getting rich, or just getting by? Quality food is expense.
    - eru 10y ago
      The Chinese government capped prices of milk products in a bid to tame inflation.
avar 10y ago
Isn't the simpler & more plausible explanation that most individual foods aren't measured like that, but rather just by summing up the protein/carbohydrate/fat etc. amounts that go into making the food? E.g. if you're making frozen pizza just add up flour, the pepperoni etc. you put in and divide it by portion size.
- alexbock 10y ago
  Pizza in particular is an interesting example because I would expect leavened bread products to be one of the cases where summing the components would cause more problems than usual (because you're going to lose sugar and other nutrients to the yeast). I'm not sure how many calories worth of carbs yeast consume during normal bread making, but I would expect it to be measurable. When making wine, yeast can easily consume pounds of sugar within days.
  - avar 10y ago
    Couldn't things like yeast be handled by some standard pre-computed approximate lookups?
    - alexbock 10y ago
      Definitely. You might not even have to consider baking time or temperature to get a good enough number to cover the calorie difference from lost carbohydrates and produced ethanol to meet the level of accuracy required for food labels. I only brought it up in the first place because whenever a simple solution to a complicated problem is put forward, it will inevitably turn out that it's either not general enough or special cases need to be handled to keep it simple. There's nothing wrong with needing special cases, but it's always nicer to figure out what the special cases will be before someone does a bunch of architectural work that hasn't considered them.
  - analog31 10y ago
    I suspect it's not a large effect for bread. My family bakes our own bread, and I would say without having measured it on a scale, that there's not a noticeable loss of weight from one end of the process to the other. Also, you'd notice the stuff bubbling if there were a significant production of CO2. I've also made beer, and it bubbles like crazy once it gets working. One possible difference is that bread is made from (mostly) starch, whereas beermaking converts starches to sugars before fermentation, and the yeasts can work more efficiently on sugars. Of course you can also load up commercial pizza with sugar... one of the reasons why we make our own pizza.
fcoury 10y ago
I found this URL that explains different methods of carbohydrate analysis in food: http://people.umass.edu/~mcclemen/581Carbohydrates.html http://people.umass.edu/~mcclemen/581Carbohydrates.html
vrc 10y ago
I know some smaller brands estimate using the USDA Food Composition Database (https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/), which in turn gets its data under the National Food and Nutrient Analysis Program (http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=9446 http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=9446). This is what I could find about their data: "Data have been compiled from published and unpublished sources. Published data sources include the scientific literature. Unpublished data include those obtained from the food industry, other government agencies, and research conducted under contracts initiated by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS)." (http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/SR28/sr28_doc.pdf http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/... <- page 2)

cma 10y ago

The protein test was famously faked with melamine in the Chinese dog-food scandal that killed dogs and resulted in a recall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls

mysterypie 10y ago
I was following that case closely back in 2007 because of my pet (thankfully not affected). An astonishing thing I learned was that practically every brand of cat food and dog food in North America is/was manufactured by a single company called Menu Foods in Streetsville, Ontario, Canada. The pet food "brands" don't have their own factories. They all contract it out to the same place. A few journalists remarked on this secret fact that came out because of the recall. We agonize over which brand is healthier for our cats and dogs, but it's all an illusion. The majority of US and Canadian pet food is made at one factory with the same basic animal ingredients, same quality control, same employees, and the same machines. Maybe they adjust the proportions slightly and tweak the flavors. Then they slap on different labels like Purina, Iams, Royal Canin, whatever. It's saddening to learn that we really don't have as much choice as we think. I'm much more skeptical and questioning than the average person, and yet I assumed that the pet food's "brand name" somehow made a difference.
- bluedino 10y ago
  >> The majority of US and Canadian pet food is made at one factory This is true if you're talking about wet pet food - there are other makers of wet pet food and dry pet food (which is over half the market) is made by other companies. Mars/Nestle (the same people who make candy...)
- spoofball 10y ago
  the majority of pet food is meat not fit for human consumption. [1] if you aren't feeding your pet meat that you eat, it's living on extreme crap. [1]: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-industry-exposed/unfit-for-humans-legal-for-dog-food/ http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-industry-exposed/unfi...
  - sukilot 10y ago
    People like fancy food. That doesn't make non-fancy food extreme crap.
    - thinkloop 10y ago
      "not fit for human consumption" is not a synonym for "unfancy". It describes the processes involved to arrive at the final food. Filet mignon can be unfit for human consumption, while pigs' feet can be processed correctly and be fit for consumption.
      - thinkloop 10y ago
        Check this out: http://www.alive.com/health/fit-for-human-consumption/ http://www.alive.com/health/fit-for-human-consumption/ Animals that are sick or unhealthy are separated from the herd and slaughtered independently, then sold for pet food and livestock feed. This was partly what fostered the mad cow issue. There is higher risk for illness with non-human grade food. If you don't want higher risk for your pet than child, you shouldn't feed the off-the-shelf non-human grade food.
        10y ago
Someone 10y ago
The linked-to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal was way more scandalous. When bought in bulk, milk isn’t priced by the liter because it is too easy to water it down. Instead, it is priced by kilograms of protein. Measuring protein is hard, so they measure nitrogen instead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjeldahl_method#Conversion_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjeldahl_method#Conversion_fac..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumas_method#Advantages_and_limitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumas_method#Advantages_and_li...). Melamine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine) is cheap, rich in nitrogen, and, unfortunately, poisonous.
- Scarblac 10y ago
  This scandal is the reason Dutch supermarkets still limit the amount of baby formula that can be bought per customer, so many Chinese trying to buy up large amounts that there was a risk many stores would run out.
  - germanier 10y ago
    Hong Kong even restricts export of baby formula (and smugglers are regularly arrested on the border to mainland).
    - eru 10y ago
      I always wonder why they don't just order more from the factory and sell to the Chinese? (Or raise prices.) Why don't they want to make more money?
      - jacalata 10y ago
        I don't know if the factories are manufacturing enough, or capable of ramping up to do so. It's a huge increase in demand. I heard of similar problems in Australia.
        10y ago
lostlogin 10y ago
The same cheat was used in milk in China in '08. Baby formula was effected and babies died. Many companies were doing it and something like 50,000 babies were hospitalised. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
- z3t4 10y ago
  Considering how cheap protein is, you must be the greediest person ever to fake baby formula.
  - powertower 10y ago
    Also this is interesting... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil
  - sukilot 10y ago
    Are these Chinese companies getting rich, or just getting by? Quality food is expense.
  - eru 10y ago
    The Chinese government capped prices of milk products in a bid to tame inflation.

avar 10y ago

Isn't the simpler & more plausible explanation that most individual foods aren't measured like that, but rather just by summing up the protein/carbohydrate/fat etc. amounts that go into making the food? E.g. if you're making frozen pizza just add up flour, the pepperoni etc. you put in and divide it by portion size.

alexbock 10y ago
Pizza in particular is an interesting example because I would expect leavened bread products to be one of the cases where summing the components would cause more problems than usual (because you're going to lose sugar and other nutrients to the yeast). I'm not sure how many calories worth of carbs yeast consume during normal bread making, but I would expect it to be measurable. When making wine, yeast can easily consume pounds of sugar within days.
- avar 10y ago
  Couldn't things like yeast be handled by some standard pre-computed approximate lookups?
  - alexbock 10y ago
    Definitely. You might not even have to consider baking time or temperature to get a good enough number to cover the calorie difference from lost carbohydrates and produced ethanol to meet the level of accuracy required for food labels. I only brought it up in the first place because whenever a simple solution to a complicated problem is put forward, it will inevitably turn out that it's either not general enough or special cases need to be handled to keep it simple. There's nothing wrong with needing special cases, but it's always nicer to figure out what the special cases will be before someone does a bunch of architectural work that hasn't considered them.
- analog31 10y ago
  I suspect it's not a large effect for bread. My family bakes our own bread, and I would say without having measured it on a scale, that there's not a noticeable loss of weight from one end of the process to the other. Also, you'd notice the stuff bubbling if there were a significant production of CO2. I've also made beer, and it bubbles like crazy once it gets working. One possible difference is that bread is made from (mostly) starch, whereas beermaking converts starches to sugars before fermentation, and the yeasts can work more efficiently on sugars. Of course you can also load up commercial pizza with sugar... one of the reasons why we make our own pizza.

fcoury 10y ago

I found this URL that explains different methods of carbohydrate analysis in food: http://people.umass.edu/~mcclemen/581Carbohydrates.html http://people.umass.edu/~mcclemen/581Carbohydrates.html

vrc 10y ago

I know some smaller brands estimate using the USDA Food Composition Database (https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/), which in turn gets its data under the National Food and Nutrient Analysis Program (http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=9446 http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=9446). This is what I could find about their data: "Data have been compiled from published and unpublished sources. Published data sources include the scientific literature. Unpublished data include those obtained from the food industry, other government agencies, and research conducted under contracts initiated by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS)." (http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/SR28/sr28_doc.pdf http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/... <- page 2)