Foods in the US magically become more nutritious

So I was looking at some canned food today, being very health conscious and all, and I came across this interesting food label. This was obviously an international product that was packaged for 2 counties, United States and Australia. One would generally assume the same product in two countries remain equally nutritious right? Wrong!

Lychee food label

You could suggest the values are rounded up, but how do you explain the extra milligram of sodium? šŸ˜®

I also love it how for the US, it’s “nutrition facts“, whereas it’s only “nutrition information” for Australia. The difference? Facts as “well tested information that are intersubjectively evaluated and can be proven true or false.” (UTA) Obviously not well tested enough.

14 insightful thoughts

  1. hmm, mabye they dont have to be as accurate with the USA nutrition information as they do in Australia so mabye they only have to be withing 5 mg of the actual value of sodium but in Australia they have to be 0.01 mg accurate. they does seem strange that Amercian legislation would allow them to be so vague though…

  2. Interesting and funny. Maybe its because of two different standardized measuring methods? Or the simplest case: different mixtures for each country?

  3. Haven’t you thought why every movie you see action is located on USA? Or why the hero always is from USA? It’s not because they are better, is only beacause they have a magic spell over them making food be more nutritious than the same food in other place of the planet.

  4. Do u have some agency which can like check this out, why the difference ?

    Some food agency?

  5. I do believe its because of the average numerical complexity the the average US Citizen can take, compared to the complexity the average Australian can take… Yes, that must be it! XD

  6. We Americans are stupid and can’t handle the real numbers. People want the quick and easy. Same reason we haven’t gone to the metric system. However, here’s the actual details:

    (4) “Sodium”: A statement of the number of milligrams of sodium in
    a specified serving of food expressed as zero when the serving contains
    less than 5 milligrams of sodium, to the nearest 5-milligram increment
    when the serving contains 5 to 140 milligrams of sodium, and to the
    nearest 10-milligram increment when the serving contains greater than
    140 milligrams.

    From the US Food and Drug Admin.

    However, my favorite part of these “rules” is the part (for sodium and other parts) that when it’s under a certain amount, companies can still claim zero. This gives them an opportunity to claim “fat free” or “calorie free” or “sodium free” when often this simply isn’t the case.

  7. Gee Long, by that rationale the Australian labeling isn’t factual. Purely informational.

  8. @RC: Of course it’s not factual. Not every can and every package contains the same portion of nutrients. It’s based off a much larger sample, purely an average anyway. šŸ™‚

  9. I haven’t read all the text here, but it seems as if the packaging is distributed globally, but the content is made locally in each seperate country.

    My guess only.

  10. Correct me if I’m wrong, but having more Sodium would make this food LESS nutritious. If I had to be worried about Protein or Sodium, I would be more concerned that the Australian stats are understating the Sodium than the fact that the American stats are overstating the Protein.

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