Nutritional information - a call for sanity

[everydayupsanddowns]

Good that they got back to you. I really don't think asking for carbs per portion is any good as serving size is dependent on appetite, build and calorie intake, more useful is the carbs per 100g so that you work out your portion size yourself.

Well... yes, per 100g *is* useful... but is is SO much easier when you can see that one 'niblet' is 4.2g CHO - rather than having to get the scales out all the time, or work out what 5/8ths of 327g is in your head.

It wouldn't annoy me anything like so much if they were *not* putting on 'per portion' data about 'of which sugars' which is completely useless.

ASDA and Tesco seem to manage it. We'd be better off just not going to Sainsburys!

 

[delb t]

Laura - Greggs do have a carb count leaflet -our team gave us one and various others at the start -103g sausauge roll=24 carbs they have info downloadable on their website

 

[DeusXM]

more useful is the carbs per 100g so that you work out your portion size yourself.

Not necessarily. The example in particular I used was a kind of mini sausage roll. They've got the fat, sodium and sugar content for one roll, plus comprehensive information for 100g of rolls.

So what am I supposed to do if I eat three of these mini rolls?

I'll have to weigh them out, for a start, to get a total weight.

Say 100g of each roll has 45g of carbs. Three rolls weigh 26g. So I then have do a calculation of 26*45/100. That gives me a total of 11.7g. To do that, I need scales and a calculator as sadly I'm not adept at my 26x table. Nor do I really want to have do a maths exam just to be able to eat three miniature sausage rolls.

Whereas if the nutritional info had the statement 1 roll contains 3.9g of carbs, that's already much each easier. I obviously just need to be able to count to 3, round up and remember my 4x table. I can then estimate roughly 12g of carbs and bolus accordingly.

Obviously yes, the 100g figure is vitally important, but if you're already putting portion-specific advice on the packet for every other macronutrient, why not just make everyone's life easier by adding one more number?

 

[Dory]

great letter Deus - I particularly found myself nodding t your comment:

'I would also say that this information is not actually helpful in the case of smaller food items. For instance, I recently bought some Sainsbury's pork and chorizo lattice rolls. While these are delicious, I have no idea how to dose my insulin accurately for them. I know that 100g of these rolls contains 24.3g of carbs. But I probably wouldn't eat 100g of these in one go. I might eat 2 or 3 individual rolls. I have no idea how much each individual roll weighs, and thus how many carbs are in each roll, because this information is not on the packet.'
not that I eat lattice rools anyway, but certainly I have found (in several supermarkets on several occasions) where a food packet will quite happily list the CHO/100g.....but then not tell you how much the food item weighs!

let us know what the response is (if any)!

 

[Dory]

or even lattice rolls!!! 😱

 

[FM001]

Well... yes, per 100g *is* useful... but is is SO much easier when you can see that one 'niblet' is 4.2g CHO - rather than having to get the scales out all the time, or work out what 5/8ths of 327g is in your head.

Not necessarily. The example in particular I used was a kind of mini sausage roll. They've got the fat, sodium and sugar content for one roll, plus comprehensive information for 100g of rolls.

Totally agree guys if the pack contains individual items as in deus sausage roll example, bulk items like cereals, flour, lentils, cereals, vegetables are still better given in a 100g weight, both is even more ideal I suppose.

 

[mcdonagh47]

Totally agree guys if the pack contains individual items as in deus sausage roll example, bulk items like cereals, flour, lentils, cereals, vegetables are still better given in a 100g weight, both is even more ideal I suppose.

the example given of the pork and chorizo lattice roll is pretty simple. There are 12 rolls in a pack and the pack weighs 168 grams. The calculation is simple enough therefore. No need to weigh anything , it's 14 grams per roll and then a simple task to use the per 100 figure or the "of which sugar" figure for each roll to calculate the carbs.

4 rolls are 56 g so just half the carbs per 100 figure for 4 rolls and quarter it for 2 rolls.

Costing ?1.70 and weighing 168 g it's ?10 per kilogram - looks like expensive processed food to me. And then there's the question of horse and donkey meat, especially with the chorizo.

 

[DeusXM]

Not being funny but that's one of the most complex 'simple' processes I've ever heard of.

So let me see if I've got this straight.

Firstly, I need to have a bit of familiarity with my 12x table beyond the standard 12 12s. Great, well done. Brilliant. So simple. I'll just divide 168 by 12. Super easy. I LOVE having to think very carefully when I just want a sausage roll.

I've then got to remultiply this by the carb count on the packet and then divide by 100. Incidentally, your 'simple' system of rounding down could put you out by as much as 5-10 carbs, which can be the difference between needing an extra unit of insulin, or not

Yes, I know how to calculate the amount of carbs in a product through maths. The whole point (which you appear to have missed) is that if they're already putting on a load of 'per portion' nutritional information on the pack anyway, why not put the carb count as well. That way, I wouldn't need to get out a calculator every time I want something to snack on. You know, make my life easier and all? Once again....if a manufacturer is going to go to the effort of calculating and printing the completely useless 'sugars' figure per portion, why can't they just put a useful measurement on there as well?

Costing ?1.70 and weighing 168 g it's ?10 per kilogram - looks like expensive processed food to me. And then there's the question of horse and donkey meat, especially with the chorizo.

Relevance to the point of having easy to use nutritional information on the packet? Sorry if I didn't cite an example that was more in keeping with your personal budgetary agenda.

 

[Julia]

Great letter and good topic!
Every cloud has a silver lining - this highlights one of the "advantages" of diabetes, I am sure as a group we have better mental arithmetic skills than average, because we have to do sums in our head many times each day 😛