1. https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/400/840/039...
e.g. https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/wp-content/upl...
I think this should be expanded to larger packaging sizes than it currently is. I think that currently only the shorter Pringles cans are affected by this new regulation in the US.
It is the law in Europe (I think) and it's the only sensible solution.
Unless you carry around a food scale to measure out all your snacks, I fail to understand why 100g^-1 is useful.
I would however be interested in a pie chart that displays the calories from different macros. Then tic tac would be 100% sugar and you could compare to soda, also 100% sugar, or chips, which are maybe 65% fat and 5% protein and 30% carbs.
My favorite serving size: 1/3 of a muffin.
An excellent example of "serving" stupidity. How big a hand? Child's hand? Adult's hand? Bodybuilder's? Woman? Man? Full? Kind of full?
I have absolutely no idea what a "serving of cheese" constitutes.
Reading the labels in the US was __extremely aggravating__ due to the serving size bullshit and it gave me a headache after calculating the percentage of sugar in the products after like the 10th product. Here in Germany, the label states the number of grams of sugar for every 100 grams of product, so you don't even have to calculate the percentage. Comparing products in the grocery store aisles is really easy in Germany.
Isn't it required in the whole EU?
Unfortunately, that might lead someone to say, well, there are 60 tic-tacs in a box, and 60 * 0 is still 0, so I can eat all 60 for 0g of sugar, which of course is not true.
I don't think any reasonable person would read those three pieces of information and assume that regular tic tacs are sugar free.
I've sort of trained myself to be careful at this point, but this is an annoyance of mine especially with clear sparkling water. I'm fine with and generally like seltzers without sweeteners added. I hate sparkling water with some artificial sweetener and the difference isn't always obvious from the big print on the label.
Regardless, it is indeed a deceptive practice that I believe should not be allowed, along with the "sugar-free!" labels when they have maltodextrin or other "basically-sugar" ingredients.
https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...
But, at least in this case, if sugars are present in a food, but at less than half a gram per serving, the label can claim the food to be sugar free, but does still have to contain a disclaimer saying that sugar is present.
Welcome to bureaucracy.
A tic-tac is zero sugar in the context of a person's normal daily intake.
Except for those who took (and paid attention in) a chemistry class, most people are woefully ignorant of precision and significant figures.
And they do list the calories to two digits (which are <5g), list sugar as the primary ingredient, and have a footnote saying that the sugar is < 0.5g.
The disadvantage of standardized labelling is that there will be edge cases, such as when the serving size is under half a gram. Some other countries standardize on 100g for size, but for tic-tacs that would be more than 3 typical containers worth. Listing all three (portion, container and 100g size) would require a fold-out label to fit, which would negatively impact a product kept in purses and pockets.
I'll wait to get out the pitchfork til they actually say "sugar-free" on the side.
They should apply it to the serving too. For a 0g serving is 0g sugar.
The problem is that USA doesn't mandate nutrition facts per container, and allows 0.49g "serving sizes".
In Tic Tac's defense, the UI design (and adveristing) for the famous "one and a half calorie breath mint" (now 1.9cal) suggests that you should be having only 1 or 2 at a time of these teeny tiny mints.
But they know that their customers can't control themselves.
> New Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules specify that the label on any food package that contains between two and three servings and that could be eaten in one sitting must provide nutrition information both for a single serving and for eating the entire contents.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-food-labels-now-tell-you-t...
On the other hand changing the serving size to ~1g would clear this up so there is a lot of rules lawyering going on here.
Especially since none of their consumers eats 1 of these things in a serving...
Is 1 at a time not enough? Is it 2 or 3?
Based on what? I think they're definitely candy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tac
"Product type: Breath mints"
Actual candies tend to be larger, like peppermints, or else you eat a bunch at once, like Nerds. Tic Tacs literally come in a tiny sturdy dispenser box because they're breath mints designed to keep with you for days/weeks. Not a cardboard box to consume in one or two sittings.
Also they sell non-mint ones...
My point is a serving size of 2 would avoid this skullduggery and be representative of how much people eat anyway.
Just be honest and say there is 1g of sugar in 1g of tic tacs.
The serving sizes are often in imperial (although the closest label shows serving size 1 can). The quantities of fat, sodium, sugar, protein are all grams or milligrams for sodium. But ounces and grams for those things are equally unrelatable for me. I don't consider the mass of these items, I just know them as a quantity on a label. If I were cooking and adding sugar or salt, it would be by volume, not mass.
It is really a myth to say that the US "doesn't use metric". (and it's also a myth to say that they use imperial units, US customary units diverge in many cases from imperial units) The US widely uses a mix of both customary and metric units.
