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Nutrional Value - A Bit of an Odd one

  • 29-12-2008 10:53am
    #1
    Jonny303
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 634 ✭✭✭


    hey,

    Not your usual nuttrional question. Just curious, does anyone know how "they" go about finding the nutrional value of food? Just interested really, google turned up nothing.


Comments

  • #2
    rubadub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,386 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    They would get nutritional info for all ingredients and then do calculations for the lot combined. For individual base ingredients I would expect they do tests in labs, i.e. you could use indicators to estimate how much protein/fat/carbs are in them. Might use spectometry type tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry

    I calculated my own info for some protein cakes I made, by just reading the packets and totting up the stuff in the right ratios.

    To find calories they burn stuff in a lab and see how much energy is released, e.g. measure the temp rise of 100ml of water when some substance is burned under it, I have done this before. They would know the calories the protein/fat carbs have so usually the calories would be calculated by just totting up known figures. Calories are really intended for fuel estimates for engineering purposes, it is not really a measure of how fat you will get, but is used as such.


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