Incorrect food labelling

Juicyj · Jan 17, 2019

Curious to ask who has come across incorrect values on the food labels ? Obviously carb content is of paramount importance on labelling, get it wrong and it's either hypo or hyper, I came unstuck yesterday on a soup label, it was chicken soup but had potato and cornflour in, label said 300g portion was 29.7g of carb and bolused accordingly, however an hour and a bit later CGM alerted me to falling BG levels, which I was able to correct before a hypo but when I later cross referenced it against Sainsburys nutrition information it was out by 14.7g, which is a huge difference, it's not the first time i've come across incorrect carb content on labels, but concerned food manufacturers are still getting it wrong and don't fully understand the implications for insulin dependent diabetics.

Muneeb · Jan 17, 2019

Juicyj said:
Curious to ask who has come across incorrect values on the food labels ? Obviously carb content is of paramount importance on labelling, get it wrong and it's either hypo or hyper, I came unstuck yesterday on a soup label, it was chicken soup but had potato and cornflour in, label said 300g portion was 29.7g of carb and bolused accordingly, however an hour and a bit later CGM alerted me to falling BG levels, which I was able to correct before a hypo but when I later cross referenced it against Sainsburys nutrition information it was out by 14.7g, which is a huge difference, it's not the first time i've come across incorrect carb content on labels, but concerned food manufacturers are still getting it wrong and don't fully understand the implications for insulin dependent diabetics.

Yes, I find it happens quite a bit, its there average nutritional info from labs. The actual content will have to be within whatever specification range they set. Often bolus accordingly and have low glucose...

JoKalsbeek · Jan 17, 2019

According to my frozen avocado packaging, they're 7 grams of carbs per 100. Including fibres, that would be correct, but Dutch food labelling shouldn't count fibres with carbs. They really don't know what they're doing, someone just blindly put the ASDA info on. *sigh*

Rokaab · Jan 17, 2019

Whilst I haven't really seen wrong values, I have seen useless values - Asda free from pasta states nutritional values by cooked weight - well that's no use, its a lot easier to weigh before cooking for a start and in some cases impossible to weigh after cooking for example weighing lasagne when its cooked wont work at all - well unless minced beef, lasagne sauce, cheese, other stuff is now weightless

porl69 · Jan 17, 2019

Yes it happens a lot with different items.....worst for me are Pot Noodles!!!! Don't eat them much....honestly

db89 · Jan 17, 2019

Rokaab said:
Whilst I haven't really seen wrong values, I have seen useless values - Asda free from pasta states nutritional values by cooked weight - well that's no use, its a lot easier to weigh before cooking for a start and in some cases impossible to weigh after cooking for example weighing lasagne when its cooked wont work at all - well unless minced beef, lasagne sauce, cheese, other stuff is now weightless

Asda are particularly bad at this - most of their values are cooked weight whatever the item is. You can do some fiddly maths with the traffic light labels and the 'per 100g' figures on the back to work out what the recommended portion weighs but that usually needs further math depending on if you're having a full portion or not.
They seem to have finally rectified it but their chilled oven cook range used to list a higher sugar than carb value on the back of the packs.

Tesco list rice by dried weight but pasta by cooked weight just to be awkward too. It's a minefield out there.

EllsKBells · Jan 17, 2019

On multiple occasions.

Restaurants, too, where they actually provide any info, seem to just make it up. We went to TGI Friday's for my boyfriend's birthday two years ago (no, I don't know what's wrong with him either), and the only thing I felt brave enough to have was a kid's portion of pasta. They claimed 57g carbs. The reading in the 20s I had a few hours later said that this was not true.

Morrisons are particularly bad. Do they just pick a number out of a hat?

rmz80 · Jan 17, 2019

Labels are rife with errors. A common error is putting the decimal point in the wrong place. It’s sometimes useful to look up similar products at other supermarkets.

Also you can double check a label by totalling up carbs as 4 cal per gram, protein 4 cal per gram and fat as 9 cal per gram. Your total should (approximately) match total calories listed. If not; there’s an error somewhere.

Foods with a high water content are the worst for accuracy. For example 100g of lettuce which is listed by USDA as 17 cal, 3.29g carb per 100g at a water content of 95%. i.e. 5gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight)

If the lettuce dry’s to 92% water ; your 100g lettuce now becomes 8gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight) i.e carbs increase by 8/5 (60% more)

tim2000s · Jan 17, 2019

rmz80 said:
Foods with a high water content are the worst for accuracy. For example 100g of lettuce which is listed by USDA as 17 cal, 3.29g carb per 100g at a water content of 95%. i.e. 5gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight)

If the lettuce dry’s to 92% water ; your 100g lettuce now becomes 8gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight) i.e carbs increase by 8/5 (60% more)

But an increase of about 1.65g of carbs per 100g is hardly going to have much of an impact on anyone?

Deleted Account · Jan 17, 2019

I must confess to rarely looking at labels for carb content - most of what I eat is made from scratch (I know I am lucky to be able to do this) or eaten out in an independent restaurant/cafe where I would not want to give them the extra effort and lack of flexibility.
Then following most meals I will check my BG and correct if it is higher or lower than I expect.

Given so much more than food affects my BG, being out by less than 10g in a meals will have as much impact as a stressful meeting or a run.

rmz80 · Jan 17, 2019

tim2000s said:
But an increase of about 1.65g of carbs per 100g is hardly going to have much of an impact on anyone?

Perhaps I should have used dry rice versus cooked rice as a better example.

Robinredbreast · Jan 17, 2019

Juicyj said:
Curious to ask who has come across incorrect values on the food labels ? Obviously carb content is of paramount importance on labelling, get it wrong and it's either hypo or hyper, I came unstuck yesterday on a soup label, it was chicken soup but had potato and cornflour in, label said 300g portion was 29.7g of carb and bolused accordingly, however an hour and a bit later CGM alerted me to falling BG levels, which I was able to correct before a hypo but when I later cross referenced it against Sainsburys nutrition information it was out by 14.7g, which is a huge difference, it's not the first time i've come across incorrect carb content on labels, but concerned food manufacturers are still getting it wrong and don't fully understand the implications for insulin dependent diabetics.

I agree wholeheartedly with you @Juicyj That happened to me a few years ago regarding bread, the nutrition differed greatly on the wrapper to the online website, so I complained, but talking about type 1 diabetes and the carb content of their product wasn't easy.
Get in touch with the company involved, to show their mistake, then they can make sure it gets amended.
Take care

Mr_Pot · Jan 17, 2019

rmz80 said:
Labels are rife with errors. A common error is putting the decimal point in the wrong place. It’s sometimes useful to look up similar products at other supermarkets.

Also you can double check a label by totalling up carbs as 4 cal per gram, protein 4 cal per gram and fat as 9 cal per gram. Your total should (approximately) match total calories listed. If not; there’s an error somewhere.

Foods with a high water content are the worst for accuracy. For example 100g of lettuce which is listed by USDA as 17 cal, 3.29g carb per 100g at a water content of 95%. i.e. 5gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight)

If the lettuce dry’s to 92% water ; your 100g lettuce now becomes 8gr of dry weight per 100g (measured weight) i.e carbs increase by 8/5 (60% more)

Who eats dried lettuce?

derry60 · Jan 18, 2019

Juicyj said:
Curious to ask who has come across incorrect values on the food labels ? Obviously carb content is of paramount importance on labelling, get it wrong and it's either hypo or hyper, I came unstuck yesterday on a soup label, it was chicken soup but had potato and cornflour in, label said 300g portion was 29.7g of carb and bolused accordingly, however an hour and a bit later CGM alerted me to falling BG levels, which I was able to correct before a hypo but when I later cross referenced it against Sainsburys nutrition information it was out by 14.7g, which is a huge difference, it's not the first time i've come across incorrect carb content on labels, but concerned food manufacturers are still getting it wrong and don't fully understand the implications for insulin dependent diabetics.

You will find that most tinned soup will have Cornflour or Potato in or Potato starch. I tend to keep away from them.

Rokaab · Jan 18, 2019

derry60 said:
You will find that most tinned soup will have Cornflour or Potato in or Potato starch. I tend to keep away from them.

Do remember though that many T1's do not want/need to stay away from carbs, but we do need to know how many there are so we can take the right amount of insulin for it..

derry60 · Jan 18, 2019

I tend to read the nutritional value online, as I do online food shopping, but I also check the food itself when it arrives. As for dried and cooked weight, I will find a Website that will give me the dry weight and cooked weight of a product. The stores do make mistakes tho at times.

Juicyj · Jan 18, 2019

Hi @derry60 My post was for insulin dependent diabetics who need to know carb content to calculate insulin, so not for dietary advice as such.

Had a response from the soup company this morning - they phoned to say they had checked the values with their food technologists and they confirmed their information was correct and Sainsbury's was out of date, I am not convinced, 27.9g for 300g portion still sounds excessive for chicken soup after doing some research, I believe that Sainsburys online info listing this at 14.3g is the guide to go by, told them this so awaiting them to verify. Sainsburys have escalated my complaint to their executive office so they are also taking it seriously - which is good as it needs to be.

I would make my own soups for work but don't have time and rely on this information being correct to take insulin.

derry60 · Jan 18, 2019

My apologies. The word chicken soup jumped out at me lol. I would love to be able to open a can of soup now and then, but have always been worried about what goes into them and the high sugar content they seem to have. Why the heck they put potato starch or potato in most of their soups beats me. I even looked at Broccoli and Stilton and that had potato in. Brilliant though that Sainsburys are taking their nutritional value seriously. Well done for flagging up the nutritional value of their foods

bidder1603 · Jan 20, 2019

I find restaurants are so bad with this. I always try to check nutritional values online or ask if they have a book where I can check. Nando’s are very bad, a diabetic friend and I went and upon checking, it said that their regular fries had something like 75gs of carbs- luckily we didn’t follow it as they definitely were more like 40g. Five Guys are even worse, they calculated their fries at something like 175g of carbs!! Luckily I wont trust this. But you feel for people who have only just been diagnosed and will trust the labels. I informed my dietician on this and she agreed that they were very wrong and actually got in contact with the two companies. Not sure what happened in the end though...

Alexandra100 · Jan 20, 2019

JoKalsbeek said:
They really don't know what they're doing

I totally agree. Happily for me I don't have to deal with insulin or hypos, but I do eat VLC between <7 and 10g carbs daily, so even small differences between the carb amounts declared on packaging bother me. I have seen cheese packets where the g carbs per 100g were declared at 30.0! (I don't buy cheeses that declare more than 0.2g carbs per 100g) I have even seen products where the grammes of carb per 100g are greater than 100g!!!

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