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The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

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Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#41

Post by arp242 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #36
glandium wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations, when they exist, are also deceiving. See how, for example, you're allowed to claim your stuff contains zero calories when it has below a certain amount of calories per some amount of content.

TicTacs, for example, are pure sugar, but the serving size is (claimed to be, at least) a single one, which conveniently weighs 0.49g.

Note quite "pure sugar", but probably close enough: https://www.tictac.com/us/en/products/tic-tacr-mint-flavors-...

I suppose it's "correct" in the sense that 0.49g rounded to the nearest gram is 0g. For reference, a sugar cube is ~4g, a can of coke has about 32g of sugar, and daily recommended intake for "free sugars" is about 30g, so their ~0.49g of sugar amounts to ~1.5% of daily intake, and amounts to about 2 calories per TicTac. That's not a whole lot, but it's not the "0" claimed on the package, either.

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#42

Post by ceejayoz »

arp242 wrote: post #41
ceejayoz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TicTacs, for example, are pure sugar, but the serving size is (claimed to be, at least) a single one, which conveniently weighs 0.49g.

Note quite "pure sugar", but probably close enough: https://www.tictac.com/us/en/products/tic-tacr-mint-flavors-... I suppose it's "correct" in the sense that 0.49g rounded to the nearest gram is 0g. For reference, a sugar cube is ~4g, a can of coke has about 32g of sugar, and daily recommended intake for "free sugars" is about 30g, so their ~0.49g of sugar amounts to ~1.5% of daily intake, and amounts to about 2 cal…

> That's not a whole lot...

I'd wager very few people actually consider a single TicTac to be a serving. A handful at least, a whole box probably not being unusual.

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#43

Post by anon84873628 »

The one that really gets me is "uncured" meat products. No nitrates added! *Except those naturally occurring in celery juice.

Well why are you bringing celery juice anywhere near my salami? Is it because of the nitrates, hmm?

It's silly that regulations apparently allow producers to market differently according to the source of the nitrates (mineral vs plant). And now producers are locked in a dilemma where they must appeal to ignorant consumers who think "uncured" is somehow healthier. Sorry people, when it comes to colon cancer you can't have your bacon and eat it too.

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#44

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

anon84873628 wrote: post #43

The one that really gets me is "uncured" meat products. No nitrates added! *Except those naturally occurring in celery juice. Well why are you bringing celery juice anywhere near my salami? Is it because of the nitrates, hmm? It's silly that regulations apparently allow producers to market differently according to the source of the nitrates (mineral vs plant). And now producers are locked in a dilemma where they must…

I think my favorite is when canned food has "no preservatives", merely enough salt to flavor an entire side of beef.

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#45

Post by anon____ »

Fricken wrote: post #39

One pet peeve of mine is ice cream being measured by volume. Similar dairy products, such as yogurt, sour cream, and cottage cheese all go by weight. The problem is that cheap ice cream is full of air. The volume is irrelevant unless you know what percentage of that volume is air. Another is food packaging listing the calories by serving size, which is a completely arbitrary amount. So if I want to know how many calo…

> cheap ice cream is full of air

Every good ice cream is. It has to be, otherwise it would be a block of hard ice, regardless of the quality of ingredients.

You are right, though, in that it could be misleading. In Europe it's generally also sold by volume, but both volume and weight is present on the label, like this: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F....

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#46

Post by arp242 »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #14
majormajor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is tolerating misleading labeling, "puffery," and other forms of untrue advertising, anything more than tolerating parasites who want to make money by tricking people? "If we lie enough, and everyone else does it to, nobody will have the time to check us on our bullshit" seems like a perfect example of non-productive economic activity that just adds additional costs to every transaction at no net positive social…

The article describes cases that are, at their very worst, puffery. In many instances, the confusion can be attributed to the "victim" not reading the nutrition label. "Oh no, I was tricked by this picture of an olive on the packaging! It's not entirely olive oil based after all! This calls for a major class action lawsuit."

That's a very odd case to critic, because it claimed to be "made with olive oil" while it merely contains olive oil, which seems like an open and shut case of deceit. Why are they advertising the olive oil and only the olive oil? Why not "Made with soybean" or "made with palm oil"?

It's not even clear to me how much olive oil it contains; according to the label it's "made with blend of plant-based oils (Soybean, Palm Fruit, Palm Kernel, Olive and Extra Virgin Olive Oil)". 1% olive oil would satisfy that, and given the relative costs and probably small to non-existent flavour differences, I'm betting it's a lot closer to 1% than 99%.

"Not reading the nutrition label" basically means "accept that the front is just a bald-faced lie". I got shit to do and a life to lead, and I don't want to scrutinize tiny text for everything I buy just to check if the basic facts on the front are correct. This is why regulations exist in the first place.

[1]: https://www.countrycrock.com/en-us/our-products/plant-butter...

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#47

Post by [deleted] »

arp242 wrote: post #41
ceejayoz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TicTacs, for example, are pure sugar, but the serving size is (claimed to be, at least) a single one, which conveniently weighs 0.49g.

Note quite "pure sugar", but probably close enough: https://www.tictac.com/us/en/products/tic-tacr-mint-flavors-... I suppose it's "correct" in the sense that 0.49g rounded to the nearest gram is 0g. For reference, a sugar cube is ~4g, a can of coke has about 32g of sugar, and daily recommended intake for "free sugars" is about 30g, so their ~0.49g of sugar amounts to ~1.5% of daily intake, and amounts to about 2 cal…

[deleted]

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#48

Post by arp242 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
arp242 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note quite "pure sugar", but probably close enough: https://www.tictac.com/us/en/products/tic-tacr-mint-flavors-... I suppose it's "correct" in the sense that 0.49g rounded to the nearest gram is 0g. For reference, a sugar cube is ~4g, a can of coke has about 32g of sugar, and daily recommended intake for "free sugars" is about 30g, so their ~0.49g of sugar amounts to ~1.5% of daily intake, and amounts to about 2 cal…

> That's not a whole lot... I'd wager very few people actually consider a single TicTac to be a serving. A handful at least, a whole box probably not being unusual.

I think it makes sense to list the nutrition per TicTac though; it's a logical unit and people can multiple from there. But zero times anything is of course always zero. I don't really know what a realistic life-size serving is.

I mostly just wanted to contextualize these numbers a bit: what does 0.49g or 4.9g sugar actually mean?

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#49

Post by ceejayoz »

arp242 wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not a whole lot... I'd wager very few people actually consider a single TicTac to be a serving. A handful at least, a whole box probably not being unusual.

I think it makes sense to list the nutrition per TicTac though; it's a logical unit and people can multiple from there. But zero times anything is of course always zero. I don't really know what a realistic life-size serving is. I mostly just wanted to contextualize these numbers a bit: what does 0.49g or 4.9g sugar actually mean?

> I think it makes sense to list the nutrition per TicTac though...

Would you similarly list nutrition facts per grain of rice, or per french fry?

It's deliberately misleading, and a serving is supposed to reflect real-life portion sizes that'd typically be consumed. Eat the box, and you've consumed nearly as much sugar as an 8oz bottle of Coke.

Re: The Gimmicks of Food Labeling

#50

Post by supertrope »

glandium wrote: post #35
jdietrich wrote: post #25

On the one hand, it's hugely impressive that someone would take it upon themselves to demand honest marketing. On the other, it seems like a dreadful failure of regulation.

Regulations, when they exist, are also deceiving. See how, for example, you're allowed to claim your stuff contains zero calories when it has below a certain amount of calories per some amount of content.

Spray can vegetable oil is labeled like this. 0 calorie label because each spray's caloric content is below the threshold. Even though we know that oil is 9 calories per gram.
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