Labelling (Elizabeth) Flashcards
What are the 2 methods for determining the nutritional composition of a product? What are advantages for each method?
- Laboratory analysis: has a greater accuracy.
- Database analysis: more convenient and easily adjustable
True or false: While database analysis can be quite accurate, it will always be more unreliable than laboratory analysis.
False. Database analysis can be just as reliable as lab analysis if properly conducted and suitable to the product being evaluated.
What are 5 scenarios where database analysis is especially convenient?
- During product development stages.
- For simple recipes with a limited number of ingredients.
- For recipes mainly composed of minimally processed ingredients.
- For recipes with easy determination of an exact yield.
- For several similar products with the same baseline recipe.
What are the 3 Nutrition Facts Tables formats used in Canada?
True or False: strict graphic requirements for NFT’s ensure a uniform presentation with the objective of making the NFT look appealing to consumers.
The 3 formats are:
1. Unilingual standard format
2. Bilingual standard format
3. Bilingual simplified format
False. There are strict graphic requirements to ensure a uniform presentation with the objective of making the NFT easy to find and read on a package.
What are the 2 scenarios that allow for use of a simplified Nutrition Facts Table on a product?
What are 6 elements that influence which NFT format will be used on the product?
- For single serve containers.
- If 6 or more ingredients are declared as 0 in the NFT.
1) Packaging type
2) Packaging design
3) Packaging shape and dimensions
4) Targeted clientele
5) Product composition
6) Claims made on the package.
Why is validation of nutritional data important in product labelling?
What nutrients are considered in the sum of a serving? (What is the formula of a serving?)
To ensure the accuracy of the declared serving sizes in relation to the nutritional composition of the product.
Serving (g) = macronutrients (total CHO, total fat, protein) + moisture + ash + alcohol + sugar alcohols + propylene glycol
What are 3 reasons that the sum of nutrient values may not correspond with the serving size? (Related to carbohydrates, moisture and ash)
Based on what standards should moisture and ash estimates be made in relation to nutritional composition?
Carbohydrates: declared total CHO content is the available CHO only and doesn’t consider fiber content.
Moisture: water content not considered
Ash: mineral content not considered
On compositional standards and Health Canada’s nutrient database.
What are the average atwater factors for CHO, fibre, fat, protein and alcohol?
True or false: Specific Atwater factors should always be used over average atwater factors for validation of a product’s caloric value.
CHO: 4 cal/g
Fibre 2 cal/g
Fat: 9 cal/g
Protein: 4 cal/g
Alcohol 7 cal/g
True.
How many mg of sodium are in 1g of salt?
Which of the following will always have a higher concentration in a product: Salt or sodium? Why?
1g salt = 393.7 mg of sodium
There will always be more sodium than salt in a recipe, because other ingredients such as food additives and ingredients naturally containing sodium contain sodium as well.
What are the 6 categories of errors in database nutritional analysis?
- Errors related to the recipe
- Errors related to the selection of ingredients
- Nutrition errors
- Unit conversion errors
- Data entry errors
- Judgement errors
When should nutrient analysis of a product be referred to a laboratory? (4 reasons)
- When a food is subject to processes that may alter its nutritional composition
- When access to accurate nutritional data for ingredients is unavailable
- When exact recipe yield cannot be determined.
- When processing losses/gains cannot be adequately estimated.
Locate the nutritional database analysis errors in the following product description. There are 10 in total.
The product in question contains 31g of spinach (rounded from 30.67g), 0.45lb of white rice and 15ml of olive oil and was left to ferment for a week before packaging.
As per the nutritional content of the product, there is only saturated fat content and no insoluble fibre (the nutrient value was missing in the database for white rice’s insoluble fibre content). The calories were calculated with average atwater factors, because the specific atwater factors were only available for the spinach.
The product is appropriate for database nutritional analysis.
- Error related to the recipe: State of spinach needs to be specified. Is it cooked, raw or frozen?
- Nutrition error: Spinach amount should not be rounded, it provides inaccurate nutrition data.
- Error related to the recipe: Metric system should be used instead of lb.
- Error related to the selection of ingredients: White rice needs to be specified. Is is basmati? Jasmin? Short-grain?
- Error related to the recipe: weight units (g) should be used instead of mL.
- Error related to the selection of ingredients: Olive oil needs to be specified. Is it extra-virgin, or just plain olive oil?
- Nutrition error: The nutritional data does not make sense with the ingredient composition. There is not only saturated fat in the product, as there is olive oil (unsaturated fat source) and no saturated fat sources in the product.
- Nutrition error: A missing nutrient value does not mean there is no insoluble fibre in the product (white rice contains insoluble fibre).
- Nutrition error: Calories for spinach should be calculated with the specific atwater value, regardless of the lack of specific atwater values for the other ingredients.
- Judgement error: The product is not appropriate for nutritional database analysis, because the fermentation is indicative of a change in nutritional composition which cannot be evaluated by database only. There needs to be a referral to Laboratory analysis.
