I always wonder how “they” can know the exact amount of fiber, protein, carbs and sugars, etc when I’m reading ingredient labels.
PS: couldn’t decide between biology or chemistry flair since I guess my question relates to biochemistry! Haha
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When I worked for the deli dept in a grocery that eventually became a Whole Foods, the following conversation was routine:
*Customer*: How many calories are in that salad?
*Me*: Well, we haven’t done a nutritional analysis, but that one has nuts, plus the dressing contains honey. I can recommend an alternative that likely has far fewer calories.
*Customer*: I’ll just have some chicken wings.
Ingredient manufacturers are responsible for creating documents that break down the nutrition content of their products. This is done in a lab or with info from their own suppliers or by estimation guidelines.
Say you develop beverages that will be a final product for consumers. You have a lab formula that breaks down the weight quantity of your ingredients. A regulatory person uses software that has the aforementioned nutrition breakdowns already inputted into it. So the software can calculate the caloric and nutrition content based off of weight and divides it by the weight/volume of the given serving size. There’s a shorthand for calories as well as for carbs, etc.
Edit: there are lots of ingredients with no nutritional value. Often flavors have very little and while they don’t reflect in the nutrition label they are required to be disclosed in the ingredient statement, which is supposed to be listed by descending weight.
Calories are a outdated unit used to measure heat. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1⁰C. This is a unit of energy. (The Joule is a more universal unit for this.) Igniting the food and measuring the amount of heat given off will give a reasonable value for the energy (calories) in the food. The heat given off is measured by a calorimeter. This is a container of a known mass of water whose initial temperature and final temperature are known. You also need to know the mass of the food that is burned up. The heat in calories is equal to the specific heat of water (1 cal/(g x C⁰) times mass of food times temperature change. This value in calories is divided by the mass of the food burned up to get the calories/gram of the food.
Ingredient manufacturers are responsible for creating documents that break down the nutrition content of their products. This is done in a lab or with info from their own suppliers or by estimation guidelines.
Say you develop beverages that will be a final product for consumers. You have a lab formula that breaks down the weight quantity of your ingredients. A regulatory person uses software that has the aforementioned nutrition breakdowns already inputted into it. So the software can calculate the caloric and nutrition content based off of weight and divides it by the weight/volume of the given serving size. There’s a shorthand for calories as well as for carbs, etc.
Edit: there are lots of ingredients with no nutritional value. Often flavors have very little and while they don’t reflect in the nutrition label they are required to be disclosed in the ingredient statement, which is supposed to be listed by descending weight.
Calories are a outdated unit used to measure heat. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1⁰C. This is a unit of energy. (The Joule is a more universal unit for this.) Igniting the food and measuring the amount of heat given off will give a reasonable value for the energy (calories) in the food. The heat given off is measured by a calorimeter. This is a container of a known mass of water whose initial temperature and final temperature are known. You also need to know the mass of the food that is burned up. The heat in calories is equal to the specific heat of water (1 cal/(g x C⁰) times mass of food times temperature change. This value in calories is divided by the mass of the food burned up to get the calories/gram of the food.
Ingredient manufacturers are responsible for creating documents that break down the nutrition content of their products. This is done in a lab or with info from their own suppliers or by estimation guidelines.
Say you develop beverages that will be a final product for consumers. You have a lab formula that breaks down the weight quantity of your ingredients. A regulatory person uses software that has the aforementioned nutrition breakdowns already inputted into it. So the software can calculate the caloric and nutrition content based off of weight and divides it by the weight/volume of the given serving size. There’s a shorthand for calories as well as for carbs, etc.
Edit: there are lots of ingredients with no nutritional value. Often flavors have very little and while they don’t reflect in the nutrition label they are required to be disclosed in the ingredient statement, which is supposed to be listed by descending weight.
Calories are a outdated unit used to measure heat. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1⁰C. This is a unit of energy. (The Joule is a more universal unit for this.) Igniting the food and measuring the amount of heat given off will give a reasonable value for the energy (calories) in the food. The heat given off is measured by a calorimeter. This is a container of a known mass of water whose initial temperature and final temperature are known. You also need to know the mass of the food that is burned up. The heat in calories is equal to the specific heat of water (1 cal/(g x C⁰) times mass of food times temperature change. This value in calories is divided by the mass of the food burned up to get the calories/gram of the food.
Bomb calorimetry. A known amount of explosive is placed with a sample of the food. When it explodes, the difference in heat evolved when the food is not present is due to the food. Explosives are used to ensure quick and complete combustion.
Bomb calorimetry. A known amount of explosive is placed with a sample of the food. When it explodes, the difference in heat evolved when the food is not present is due to the food. Explosives are used to ensure quick and complete combustion.
Bomb calorimetry. A known amount of explosive is placed with a sample of the food. When it explodes, the difference in heat evolved when the food is not present is due to the food. Explosives are used to ensure quick and complete combustion.
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