[foxyv]

It doesn't help that food manufacturers intentionally make it hard to measure nutrition from most of their foods. They play around with serving sizes to hide carbohydrates making you have to do math just to keep up.

Sometimes they will round down on grams of macros after setting the serving size so they can claim it has zero sugar when it does in fact have tons of sugar. Tic-tacs are the worst about this. They claim they have zero everything despite just being sugar tablets.

[vanviegen]

In the EU, food manufacturers are required to label macronutrients (and salt) in mg/100mg or mg/100ml for fluids. Easy to compare, works great.

[knifie_spoonie]

It's the same in Australia as well. I'm a bit shocked that the US doesn't have this.

[oniony]

But are you actually?

[foxyv]

This makes so much more sense than the labels in the USA.

[steveBK123]

US food labelling is insane.

For example - lactose-free yogurt is often just regular yogurt with lactase enzyme added.

If that's what I wanted, I'd buy regular yogurt and take a lactaid supplement.

[BoiledCabbage]

What other method would you deem appropriate for removing lactose from milk? A targeted enzyme that removes it seems pretty wise to me.

Since they're not gonna use tweezers, :) are you suggesting instead engineer or breed a special set of cows that don't produce lactase in their milk?

[steveBK123]

A better description would be "lactase treated" milk. In any case, I found consuming it regularly for breakfast still lead me to feel unwell over time.

However I can periodically consume dairy when I take a strong dose of lactase supplements.

From some literature it does appear that manufacturers can use "lactose free" even for non-zero amounts of lactose (10mg per 100g).

This is actually higher lactose density than many cheese varieties, especially considering I would be consuming say 150-200g of yogurt, whereas if I am eating cheese its in small careful quantity.

[barnabyjones]

A2 milk not only exists but is very popular in Asia actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_a2_Milk_Company

[exhilaration]

What does A2 milk have to do with lactose? I don't see lactose mentioned in your link.

[UomoNeroNero]

Yes. I can find everywhere on labels the carb amount. I use 2 app too. And after a lot of errors I acquired a six sense (that try to kill me everyday ;-D)

[BobaFloutist]

My favorite example is that cooking spray advertises 0g of fat, giving a serving size of 0.33 seconds of spray

[krferriter]

I think this is one of the crazier ones. It's just canola oil! It's the same as spreading that much canola oil on the surface, the spray is mainly convenient because it spreads it out evenly for you without you needing to contact the surface. But Pam gets to put "0g fat" and "For Fat Free Cooking" on the side of all their cans.

[bluGill]

That might even be realistic if you are spraying a baking sheet - since you cover the whole thing. But if you are cooking pancakes and spray the pan after each one you get a lot of carbs.

[username135]

Alt tip: dont use any fat on the pan when cooking pancakes. Gives the surface that restaurant quaility, smooth evenness.

[bluGill]

Depends on the pan and pancake. Restaurants use a fair amount of fat in their dough so fat on the griddle isn't needed, if you make your own batter (as opposed to store bought) you can control this and reduce the fat such that you need to add some to the pan. The pancakes will of course taste different. In my case I'm making sourdough on cast iron - I've never figured out the trick to make the first couple not stick (whatever I cooked the night before affects something)

[username135]

True!

[hilux]

Carbs?

[bluGill]

Arrgghhh... Once more I wish I could edit things a day latter to fix all my stupid mistakes. (I blame is on diagnosed dysgraphia).

Oil is not carbs of course. I guess I meant fat.

[pkaye]

The rounding rule is carbs <0.5g can be rounded down to 0 and calories <5 can be rounded down to 0. But I have a feeling even if they properly labeled it without rounding, people would eat the whole pack of tic tac anyway.

https://foodlabelmaker.com/regulatory-hub/fda/rounding-rules...

[foxyv]

So you can just make the serving size so small that everything is less than 0.5g

[tart-lemonade]

The margins the FDA allows for class 2 and third group nutrients are also quite generous. I'm sure they made sense back when they were first introduced, but as food science has improved, the standards have not.

> The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows calorie content to exceed label calories by up to 20%

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3605747/

> Class I nutrients are those added in fortified or fabricated foods. These nutrients are vitamins, minerals, protein, dietary fiber, or potassium. Class I nutrients must be present at 100% or more of the value declared on the label

> Class II nutrients are vitamins, minerals, protein, total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, other carbohydrate, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat, or potassium that occur naturally in a food product. Class II nutrients must be present at 80% or more of the value declared on the label.

> The Third Group nutrients include calories, sugars, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. [...] For foods with label declarations of Third Group nutrients, the ratio between the amount obtained by laboratory analysis and the amount declared on the product label in the Nutrition Facts panel must be 120% or less, i.e., the label is considered to be out of compliance if the nutrient content of a composite of the product is greater than 20% above the value declared on the label.

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...

Edit: Expanded the quotes to include definitions.

[yellow_lead]

Plus the whole sugar vs. sugar alcohol nonsense, which I still don't completely understand.

[freedomben]

IANA nutritionist or expert at all in this area so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding from looking into it is that the sugar alcohol doesn't break down in digestion and isn't absorbed, that's why the "carbs" from sugar alcohol "don't count."

I would recommend taking it easy on the sugar alcohols even though they "don't count" because they can cause significant gas ;-)

[foxyv]

It depends on the type. Some are partially digested as carbohydrates. Others are not. You can look up their individual Glycemin Index.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0261/4761/8864/files/Scree...

[rini17]

And some like xylitol are highly toxic to dogs, must be careful around them.

[freedomben]

Indeed. My dog loves the dissolve-on-your-tongue melatonin, but it is super deadly to her because of the Xylitol. I keep it on a high shelf now and am very careful to pick up any pieces that might get dropped. She made it through, but that was a terrifying few days D-:

[MisterTea]

I also hate the games they play with labeling such as "no sugar added." Bought a cherry pie from a local market labeled "no sugar added" thinking it was going to be extra tart only to take it home and taste sugar. Reading the label it listed sugar alcohol which I learned can cause gas and bloating in some people, which I soon found out. Once slice had me doubled over with gas pains a whole night and shit my brains out the next day. I got my money back for that piece of garbage pie. I want to punch whoever thought no sugar added means fuck all...

[Dylan16807]

Sugar alcohols seem simple enough to me. The properties vary but they generally have fewer calories per gram and a low glycemic index, and some of them are much sweeter per calorie.

[interludead]

And I think there's also a psychological angle here, for instance when people see that something claims to be zero sugar or low carb, it can trigger a sense of relief or permission to indulge.