Day One Hundred and Seventy Five!!!!

Reading The Label!


When I was growing up, I remember everyone being big on calories, “get your calories down pat, then you can worry about everything else. If you just burn off the calories you consumed through exercise then it’s like you never ate it in the first place but, you have to keep burning those calories in order to get a calorie deficit for the weight to come off.” 


All of a sudden something changed and then it became that WHERE you got your calories from started to matter, “don’t eat fat, especially saturated fat! Don't eat bad cholesterol! There’s good and bad cholesterol but, we aren’t going to explain what this means!”


Everything about food consumption became so confusing and in such a big mess of information that,

1. I only grasped the concept of calories, and
2. I fucking hated it all because no matter what I ate, it didn’t work.

So now I get it. On the nutrition label the stuff on the left represents what is in the food, and the percentage on the right is how much it equals out into your needed daily food intake.


So for example;


Baken-ets Traditional from Frito-Lay Canada Pork Rinds on the from of the packet states 1g carbohydrate for 15 g serving, there are 70 grams in the package stated on the front of the package. 


On the back of the package under Nutrition Facts, states per 9 pieces is a serving which is (15 grams). Calories are stated at 90, Fat is listed as 6 grams, cholesterol as 20mg, sodium as 310 mg, carbohydrates, 1g (the fibre is 0g and the sugars are 0g), protein is listed at 7grams per serving. There is zero listed under all of the vitamins.  


On the right hand side is the percentage daily value, which is the percentage of what you should eat for the day. Fat is listed as 9% and when you add in saturated and trans the tally goes up to 14%. Cholesterol is listed at 7%, sodium is listed asm13% and carbohydrate is listed as 1%.


The ingredients are listed as pork rinds, lard and salt. The ingredients are listed from majority content to minority content.


Lets compare that to;


Joes Tasty Travels California Non Salted Walnuts Halves and Pieces.


The front of the package says ‘Natural’ totalling 300 grams. 


The Nutrition Facts are listed on the back of the package, per half cup or (50 grams). 


The calories are listed as 360, Fat is listed as 34 grams, cholesterol is 0mg, the sodium is 0mg, the carbohydrate is listed as 6 grams, fibre is listed as containing 4g and the sugars are 1g, the protein is listed as 7g. For percentage daily value there is 52% fat, saturated plus trans fat is listed as 21%, carbohydrate is listed as 2%, and fibre is listed as16%. Vitamin A and C is listed at zero percent, Calcium is listed at 4% and iron is listed as 10%.


The ingredients are listed as walnuts.


In order to do a comparison of these two products you would have to base the product on weight. 


You would need to divide the walnuts by 3 to get the same 15 g serving, to compare it to 15 grams of pork rinds. 


The walnuts would be 11 grams of fat compared to 6 grams of fat in the pork rinds.
The walnuts would be 2 grams of carbohydrates compared to 1 gram of carbs in the pork rinds.


So really, if you needed to pick one product over the other, then it would really depend what you are looking for. 


The carbohydrates are very similar numbers wise, but if you were going for less salt you would pick the walnuts, less calories you would pick the pork rinds.


Now the thing is, both products are munchies designed for a quick snack, however the walnuts have a lot more fat, and contain fibre, calcium, protein and iron, so the final decision depends on which you like better taste wise as well as what you are looking for in regards to components such as fat, fibre, vitamins, calcium and protein wise.
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