Cronometer is probably the most comprehensive food app, especially for foods without barcodes. But their data is only as good as the databases they pull from.
Especially for natural foods like kombucha, it’s not surprising that nutritional values vary because manufacturing is not as standardized as ultra processed foods.
For example, I compared different reported amounts of B vitamins from various unfortified nutritional yeast brands. When I followed up with one of the companies, they gave me completely different testing results from their nutritional label. Different testing results from different batches…
Yeah, and ironically the people who read the labels most carefully are exactly the people who need the most accuracy. If it’s off by 20%, you’ll often make worse decisions than if you think the label is accurate
Nutrition labels aren't one-size-fits-all: I like to check if a product contains palm oil, and compare how much added sugar there is per "serving". I know people who need to check if a product contains peanuts, or how much of the fat in a product is saturated fat.
I'm not going to restrict my diet to products that happen to have been tested by a 3rd party, but I would like to know which manufacturers tend to have accurate labels, and which don't. Ideally the FDA would enforce basic standards, but 3rd-party organizations like Consumer Reports could play a bigger role, too.
I'd redirect your criticism to simplistic labeling systems like Nutri-Score (which several countries have adopted). Who's to say chocolate can't be part of a healthy, balanced diet 😀
Isn’t that the case for getting rid of labels entirely, or at least going back to the days when just ingredients had to be listed? FDA can’t keep up with all the nutrition stuff that interest people, so why not let each of us use whatever app we trust most?
App makers have to compete with FDA. “Why should I pay for an app when I can get government certified accurate info for free?” It might be okay if FDA information were accurate, but it’s not.
People can decide for themselves if they are satisfied with the basic FDA-mandated, self-disclosed information on the nutrition label, or if they want to get additional information from a 3rd-party they trust more?
But given that a typical grocery store here carries 15-60K products, I don't see how a 3rd-party labeling system can work without relying heavily on manufacturer-provided data (or money)...
There is a lot of room for independent certification and testing organizations, as well as apps that combine data from various sources to help you decide what products to buy or avoid: "I see you're looking at an X chocolate bar... For $2 more you can get a Y chocolate bar. Both claim to be low on sugar, which is good, given that you often eat chocolate late in the evening, and then end up with prolonged elevated blood sugar. But company Y's labelling is usually more accurate. Also, they don't use slave labor, which is something you said you care about."
Cronometer is probably the most comprehensive food app, especially for foods without barcodes. But their data is only as good as the databases they pull from.
Especially for natural foods like kombucha, it’s not surprising that nutritional values vary because manufacturing is not as standardized as ultra processed foods.
For example, I compared different reported amounts of B vitamins from various unfortified nutritional yeast brands. When I followed up with one of the companies, they gave me completely different testing results from their nutritional label. Different testing results from different batches…
Yeah, and ironically the people who read the labels most carefully are exactly the people who need the most accuracy. If it’s off by 20%, you’ll often make worse decisions than if you think the label is accurate
Nutrition labels aren't one-size-fits-all: I like to check if a product contains palm oil, and compare how much added sugar there is per "serving". I know people who need to check if a product contains peanuts, or how much of the fat in a product is saturated fat.
I'm not going to restrict my diet to products that happen to have been tested by a 3rd party, but I would like to know which manufacturers tend to have accurate labels, and which don't. Ideally the FDA would enforce basic standards, but 3rd-party organizations like Consumer Reports could play a bigger role, too.
I'd redirect your criticism to simplistic labeling systems like Nutri-Score (which several countries have adopted). Who's to say chocolate can't be part of a healthy, balanced diet 😀
Isn’t that the case for getting rid of labels entirely, or at least going back to the days when just ingredients had to be listed? FDA can’t keep up with all the nutrition stuff that interest people, so why not let each of us use whatever app we trust most?
The FDA isn't preventing you from using an app...
I'd rather advocate for the USDA to retire the "organic" or "free-range" labels, given that they don't mean what most people think they do!
App makers have to compete with FDA. “Why should I pay for an app when I can get government certified accurate info for free?” It might be okay if FDA information were accurate, but it’s not.
People can decide for themselves if they are satisfied with the basic FDA-mandated, self-disclosed information on the nutrition label, or if they want to get additional information from a 3rd-party they trust more?
But given that a typical grocery store here carries 15-60K products, I don't see how a 3rd-party labeling system can work without relying heavily on manufacturer-provided data (or money)...
There is a lot of room for independent certification and testing organizations, as well as apps that combine data from various sources to help you decide what products to buy or avoid: "I see you're looking at an X chocolate bar... For $2 more you can get a Y chocolate bar. Both claim to be low on sugar, which is good, given that you often eat chocolate late in the evening, and then end up with prolonged elevated blood sugar. But company Y's labelling is usually more accurate. Also, they don't use slave labor, which is something you said you care about."