Do nutrition information labels not have to include the entire contents in the package?

lightenup2016
lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
edited November 2024 in Food and Nutrition
For instance, I have a little jar of sun-dried tomatoes from Trader Joe's. They're packed in olive oil. I use the entire jar for my sun-dried tomato pesto, but in the nutrition information it says a serving size is a certain amount of tomatoes "drained". Does this mean they're not including the olive oil that's in the jar in the calorie content? I use that olive oil for the pesto, and don't add any extra, but I don't want to be excluding all those oil calories if they're not included.

For some reason I was just under the impression that the nutrition information had to give information for the entire package, not just a portion of it. Any insight?

Replies

  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    If it says drained then they are specifically excluding the majority of the olive oil from the nutritional information. They don't expect you to pat the tomatoes dry but they do expect you to use a fork or a sieve to separate the tomatoes. If you use the remaining olive oil, you need to measure it out and account for those calories.

    If they didn't specify "drained" then you could assume that everything in the package was included but they did.
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
    Check the grams of fat per 100 grams. Sun-dried has about 3g fat per 100g, sun-dried in oil drained has about 14g per 100g.

    I would say the nutrition information does not include the oil drained from them, so I would weigh and log the oil drained from them when I use it.

    Basic Report: 11955, Tomatoes, sun-dried

    Basic Report: 11956, Tomatoes, sun-dried, packed in oil, drained

    Source: USDA National Nutrient Database Standard Reference, https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    The label states 5g fat for 19g serving, so about 25g fat per 100g. It seems to me like that's including quite a bit of oil, but I will measure the excess oil tonight when I make the pesto again. (Darn, more calories than I was hoping for!)

    Thank you!
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