As I said in my previous post I planned on adding an additional blog this week, which I feel will not only offer some real insight to understanding some basic concepts of ingredient lists, but will further help us understand the concepts in the final post of this series For today's post I would like to discuss a few pieces of information about the list of ingredients that appear on the container of food you are about to purchase.
First, the government states that the ingredients list must be labeled in descending order, by weight. Basically, whichever ingredient weighs the most in a product is going to be the first one listed and everything thing after, weighs less as the list trickles down. Water is listed first on this list, which means it weighs the most out of all the other ingredients, however that dose not always mean it makes up the most volume of this product. The next two ingredients may only weigh 1 gram less then the ingredient ahead of them, but could ultimately have more volume then the ingredient that has more weight. Remember, weight and volume are not the same measurements as we discover in science class during the density lesson so it stands within reason that just because the first ingredient listed may weigh the most, dose not mean it makes up the most volume of the product. I will say that for the most part, the first two or three ingredients listed generally make up the majority of a product, but I just wanted to point out that it may not always be the case.
Let's move down the list a little, knowing that if we are following a descending order concept, each ingredient following will weigh less and less. Third on the list is sugar, so we know it weighs less then it's two lead ingredients, but look further down the list. High fructose corn syrup or in other words, sugar. Maltodextrin and dextrose also known as sugar. And guess what? Cane extract and corn syrup, yup you guessed it, sugar. So what's the deal here? Since the government makes companies list the ingredients by weight, many companies will fabricate the amount of a product, like sugar, by using very similar products to increase the total amount, but since they are separate ingredients, they each have their own measurements and now sugar can be spread across the list into smaller chunks, but if you add them together there may be more sugar than you think. If I were a betting man I would say that with six of the ingredients being sugar based, that this product contains more sugar than any other ingredient, even though water is listed first because it is only used once and weighs the most, but we can see that it may not make up the majority of the product.
Whats with the "contains 2% or less" section? This is a common question I see and it really has a lot of similarities as the last post on rounding down numbers. Basically, anything that makes up 2% or less of that product gets tossed into this category, which by the way is the only section of the list not regulated by the descending order principle, because it's very similar to the "insignificant amount" concept with those macro nutrients we discussed before. Generally speaking, most of the products listed here are usually very small amounts as their title suggests, but by law they could be as high as 2% each, so with nine items in this group legally 18% of this product could be made up with these insignificant ingredients. Again, I tend to find many of these products that get labeled here to be very small amounts, but I have seen products with as many as 25 ingredients in this category, which in my professional opinion is nothing more than filler for a company to pad their product's size or weight. Then again, should five different artificial sweeteners find their way onto the "2%" list, then you might be ingesting more sugar than you thought. This section generally contains; preservatives, flavoring, conditioners and minimal seasonings, but again many companies can pad their product by adding in 1% of an ingredient 20 times over, thus making a 3 ounce product turn into a 4 ounce product with no real addition nutritional gain.
In conclusion, we now understand that the order of the ingredients list is based on weight, not volume of a product. So the next time you read an ingredient list, know that the first product may generally be the majority of what makes up said product, but it may not always be the case. We also know that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to how much of an ingredient is actually in something, like sugar, based on the loophole of multiple ingredient listings. I will be posting another bonus blog shortly after the finale of this series that will discuss other ingredients such as; preservatives aliases for a product (like we saw with sugars) names and descriptions of ingredients that are actually something totally different than you may think and other interesting information such as contaminants or when a product is not actually what is claims to be (ever had fruit snacks that contain no actual fruit?).
I generally tell people to pay attention to the first 3 maybe 4 ingredients on a list, which is a good starting point when analyzing an ingredients list, because it will most likely be what that product is mostly comprised of. Eventually you will know some of the other names for ingredients and begin to thoroughly inspect the amount of "additional" ingredients and formulate a conclusion that one product may be a better choice than the next, but for starters the first three is a great starting point added with the other information we've picked up in the previous and forth coming blogs. Below are two links describing in detail the rules and regulations of ingredient listing. If you scroll through them you will see there are many many rules and generally, the more regulations, the more potential loopholes can exist.
FDA Ingredient Listing
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
Stay tuned for more!
"Excellence dose not require perfection"- Henry James
*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only and the product is fictitious in nature.
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