4 ms·

Wow, do nutrition labels in USA generally not show figures per 100g?

• mmanfrin 9y ago
  No, and it's really obnoxious, because there are thresholds where content doesn't have to be listed. For example, a package of tic-tacs will say that it has 0g sugar per serving (a 'serving' being one tic-tac), but the whole (small) package will have something like 20g of sugar.
  • 3pt14159 9y ago
    This is one thing I actually think America does right. I'm the type of person to eat a single tic-tac, but even if I acknowledge that there are failures, it's far easier for me to get a rough sense as to how bad eating something is if it lists it's actual content. Ideally there would be both, but having to do 0.85 * 260 just to get the calorie count for this is just annoying. I do think the design of the labels is completely ridiculous, though. Sugar, trans fats, and caloric count should be made much more prominent and put in red so that uninformed people understand that these are the primary causes of sickness in America.
    • kazinator 9y ago
      > put in red so that uninformed people understand that these are the primary causes of sickness in America. The hypothesis here being what? Lack of red highlighting in informative tables is the cause for uninformedness? :)
    • Symbiote 9y ago
      That's more-or-less what Sainsbury's (in the UK) did with their products. Most things must show the amount per serving and the amount per 100g (in common across the EU), but they also show a chart with green/orange/red based on a typical serving size. Example: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/61458000/jpg/_61458111_004398823-1.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/61458000/jpg/...
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• Terribledactyl 9y ago
  It's either a seemingly random measure or, if in a single serving container, the total calories.
• wott 9y ago
  We should consider ourselves lucky they used grams at all and not their fancy units.
  • DrScump 9y ago
    What drives me nuts is that the Nutrition Information has metric units but the front of the package may not (e.g. "One Quart (32 oz)" but no liter equivalent printed). Worse is that many products have bogus information. I'm not talking just about the inexactness of the methods, but in many cases the macronutrient math doesn't add up. Total calories should be about (protein + carb)x4 + (fat)x9. Too often, it isn't close. I was comparing two versions within a product line yesterday (chili with beans vs without beans), and the calorie count for one mismatched the macronutrient breakdown by almost 10%.
    • wolfgang42 9y ago
      If you think that's bad, I encountered a package of tofu recently which stated "Serving Size: 1/4 package; Servings per Package: 8"! Things like that really make you wonder about the reliability of the rest of the information on the label...
• adrianmonk 9y ago
  It's per serving. Obviously, it's easier to compare if they are all relative to 100g, but arguably per-serving is more useful when making eating decisions. When I'm buying a food, I'm not trying to do science; I'm trying to figure out how much of a particular nutrient I'm personally going to get when I eat that item. For example, if I have soup, there's no way I'll have as little as 100g of it. If I have tea, there's no way I'm going to have as much as 100g of tea leaves. The mass of a serving could be 1 or even 2 orders of magnitude different depending on the type of food. Serving sizes are required by law to be "based on amounts of foods and beverages that people are actually eating" (see https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm385663.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument... ).
  • kbart 9y ago
    Serving size is highly individual matter and, from my personal experience, usually much smaller than actual amount I take of pretty much everything.
  • seanwilson 9y ago
    The UK labels generally show per serving and per 100g together. Generally I find the serving sizes so low you're best to completely ignore them.
    • icebraining 9y ago
      The UK labels generally show per serving and per 100g together. In fact, I think that's now the norm in the whole of the EU.
  • aedron 9y ago
    Why not both? Which is what is used in Europe.
    • adrianmonk 9y ago
      It can certainly go either way, but space and simplicity would be the arguments against including both. On a small label, you might need to use a smaller font. Even if you have enough space, a more minimalist approach can be quicker to read (provided that it contains the information you actually want).