Poll of the Day > American nutrition labels need a per 100g section

(+) Yeah! (+)

Enough of this 0 calories per serving but the serving size is 0.001g nonsense.

Considering American nutrition labels already give serving sizes, it would be completely unnecessary. And quite possibly counter-productive, because most people don't know what the fuck 100g means anyway (as opposed to the more intuitive "Serving Size: 4 chips" or "Serving Size: 1/2 package" type of listings we already have).

And I doubt there's a single legitimate product on the market with a 0.001g serving size anyway.


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Is there not a fraction of a pack size measure either?
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Considering American nutrition labels already give serving sizes, it would be completely unnecessary. And quite possibly counter-productive, because most people don't know what the fuck 100g means anyway (as opposed to the more intuitive "Serving Size: 4 chips" or "Serving Size: 1/2 package" type of listings we already have).

And I doubt there's a single legitimate product on the market with a 0.001g serving size anyway.

You kind of missed the point. If a serving size's calorie content is less than 5 calories then it's perfectly legal to round down to 0 calories. As a result you see products listed as 0 calories with obnoxiously small serving sizes (see: cooking sprays).

Or fucking volume measurements. Foods that only have volume measurements are the worst.

brown sugar (1 cup): X calories, Y calories packed.

2 separate, low precision measurements where one highly precise one would suffice. I blame the cretins who don't use food scales.

EightySeven posted...

You kind of missed the point.

I didn't miss the point. You either completely mistated your point, or your point was flawed from the beginning.



EightySeven posted...

If a serving size's calorie content is less than 5 calories then it's perfectly legal to round down to 0 calories.

Yes, because at that point, it's pretty much functionally zero anyway.



EightySeven posted...

As a result you see products listed as 0 calories with obnoxiously small serving sizes (see: cooking sprays).

Which means the specific problem you have is limited to a very unique, isolated example, and not American nutritional labels in general.

(And to be perfectly honest, if you actually care about healthy eating, you probably shouldn't be using cooking sprays at all in the first place.)

But regardless, your proposed solution wouldn't help in that specific scenario anyway, for precisely the same reasons I already said. Most people can barely judge amounts based on solid or liquid measures, let alone liquid droplets in mist form. There's no way most people would gain any realistically useful data out of numbers based on a 100g amount.

Hell, most sprays of that nature currently give serving sizes in amounts of "spritz", and people still can't figure THAT out.


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EightySeven posted...

I blame the cretins who don't use food scales.

So 97%+ of the buying public then?


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calorie isn't a good measure anyway, since you don't absorb calories from food at the same rates
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Rounding down by 5 is kind of stupid (it doesn't need to be super precise but isn't nearest integer good enough?), but I don't see what standardizing to 100g would help. You're not going to eat 100g of cooking spray, nor is it really convenient to weigh cooking spray if you actually wanted to bother doing that math

Also are you positive that they can list zero if they aren't actually a zero-calorie food? I feel like I've seen stuff labeled with "<5" on it before

Yeah, my gum has the <5

Everything should just be measured in handfuls.
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EightySeven posted...

brown sugar (1 cup): X calories, Y calories packed.

Cups are used to cook in ratios, the entire point of it is to not have to use defined amounts.
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Okay I'll give your suggestion to homeland security.

I just wish they'd use realistic serving sizes.

A serving of Poptarts is just one. Not one packet of two, no, one individual pastry. Who eats just one Poptart? What do you do with the other one?

One serving of Nongshim Bowl Noodle is 1/2 a bowl. Am I supposed to somehow cook half of it, or do I have nasty leftover noodles later?

I have a package of candy that says "Servings per container: 2.5". Who is gonna eat just 40% of a candy bar?

captpackrat posted...

I just wish they'd use realistic serving sizes.

A serving of Poptarts is just one. Not one packet of two, no, one individual pastry. Who eats just one Poptart? What do you do with the other one?

One serving of Nongshim Bowl Noodle is 1/2 a bowl. Am I supposed to somehow cook half of it, or do I have nasty leftover noodles later?

I have a package of candy that says "Servings per container: 2.5". Who is gonna eat just 40% of a candy bar?

This. When I eat cereal I eat a whole bowl, not a couple grams.
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EightySeven posted...

Or fucking volume measurements. Foods that only have volume measurements are the worst.

brown sugar (1 cup): X calories, Y calories packed.

2 separate, low precision measurements where one highly precise one would suffice. I blame the cretins who don't use food scales.

Err... When it lists it by cup it also lists the grams. The problem is you need a good scale to accurately measure dry goods by weight. Sugar, flour, they settle and compact. They should not be measured by volume. Ever
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Chewster posted...

Also are you positive that they can list zero if they aren't actually a zero-calorie food? I feel like I've seen stuff labeled with "<5" on it before

Yeah, my gum has the <5

When I lived in the US they did allow cooking spray to list 0 over a decade ago iirc

You also didn't have to list trans fats at all if it was under .5 grams per serving
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Or they could just start showing percentages and grams by the tenth percentile

Way too much processed food with trans fat nowadays that advertises that it has 0g trans fat when in reality it has some but is below the benchmark of 0.5g per serving to be on the label
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It's nice to have it there as an alternative but serving sizes as they're written are more useful to me. I don't want to do calculations each time to get X amount of calories. The serving sizes are typically reasonable for most foods and it's not as hard to divide it by half if it's on a food scale or something.
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The thing is when you have the 100g nutritional information you have that after the serving size. So you get both, it's not either or. Being able to compare foods by the same standard weight allows you to understand things at a quick glance. I don't know why people could possibly be opposed to being informed and losing no information
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To make someone's job exponentially harder for marginal benefit. People are going to gorge regardless and if you have to split hairs on chocosaltlicsticks, you probably shouldn't be eating them anyway.