Food packaging

[Dyadya_Maykl]

I fancied buying some fresh pasta. I was in Tesco, and looked at the stuffed pasta bags - tortelloni, tortellini, ravioli etc. I picked up a pack, and looked for the ingredients. No luck. There was traffic light system - so I could see the amount of sugar, but not the amount of carbohydrate. I agree that the traffic light system is good as an immediate summary, but no use for the counting of carbohydrate portions. Does anyone know if the food labelling legislation has changed, and manufacturers no longer have to list all ingredients by % weight
Seems that manufacturers get away with hiding information.
Oh well, I put the packet down. I checked the other Tesco pasta products, and found they all missed the crucial CHO information. I like fresh pasta, so will look out for CHO listings in other supermarkets. Use of lookup tables is OK, but for goods like fresh pasta, they are no more than a rough guide, so not much use for accurate CP counting.
I just hope this is not the shape of food labelling for the future.

 

[noblehead]

No I don't think this is the future, food labelling has come on a long-way in recent years. To find out the nutritional information for Tesco's products go to their website, I've just checked and they have all the nutritional info for each pasta product.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

I have never cooked pasta but have always believed it was mostly flour and water. I looked up Wikipedia and give or take an egg I was right. Presumably this means it is mostly carbohydrate.

 

[Yorksman]

I have never cooked pasta but have always believed it was mostly flour and water. I looked up Wikipedia and give or take an egg I was right. Presumably this means it is mostly carbohydrate.

It is if it is genuine pasta, not all is. Even italian pasta is made from several forms of flour:

durum wheat semola
durum wheat semolato
whole wheat durum semola

Durum wheat is yellow and makes poor gluten flours. Breads made with it tend to be dense and cakes made with it will tend to split. Softer whiter flours are used for those things. Semolina bread is however, very tasty and is low GI. Durum is milled to give coarse edge grains of sizes much larger than the smoother more highly refined white flours. It takes longer to break down in the digestive system but of course, portion sizes do need to be managed.

The white stuff often sold as semolina in shops is usually ground white rice and not durum wheat.

 

[Daibell]

I'm afraid food labelling is based on the (false?) assumption that fats are the guilty party and that sugars are the only problem carbs. Amazing how such ignorance can pervade all the food industry. Fortunately the pack contents always show the total carbs.

 

[noblehead]

Fortunately the pack contents always show the total carbs.

And if not there's some excellent books out there, I always find the Carb Calorie & Fat Bible a great book to look up carb values, although Carbs & Cals is a close second.

 

[copepod]

I think you're confusing ingredients (which are listed with heaviest first), traffic light label (usually prominant on front of packet) and nutritional information (which usually included carbhoydrate, "of which sugars" etc, per 100g, and often also per portion). I haven't bought fresh pasta from tesco recently, but I doubt they have stopped printing nutritional information on back of pack.