Food testing labelling ect!!!! Help needed!?!?

Question

Why is it important to have food labelling, what can it tell us?

How do scientist analyse the food samples and the tests they use and what are the limitations?

Only including qualitative not quantitative btw.

-rememberkaia

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Answer 1

The nutritional content of foods is important if you are watching your weight, are diabetic, or have other health needs.  When watching your weight, for example, you must expend more energy in your metabolism than you take in as food.  You therefore need to know how much energy you are ingesting, as measured in calories.  If you are diabetic, you must limit the carbohydrate content of your food, with the exception of fiber, which is indigestible.

Others' bodies react badly to specific kinds of food, hence the list of ingredients.  For example, people on certain statin drugs must avoid one of the substances found in grapefruit.  Others have allergies to peanuts or to gluten or to something else.

Still others have nothing particularly wrong with their bodies but want to avoid or to get especially much of certain nutrients or substances.  Saturated and trans fats are substances that some people would like to avoid.  Iron, vitamin C, calcium, and fiber would be examples of substances some people deliberately seek in their diets.

Answer 2

Food labelling is strictly regulated and defines the ingredients went into a food and what other things have been added.  This is important as many foods have restrictions on what ingredients can be used and of course the consumer can only exercise his choice in the light of full knowledge of what a product contains.  People with specific food allergies are generally catered for outside conventional food labelling ("eg suitable for Diabetics") but none the less good ingredient listing is a help to these minorities.

EU regulations have greatly improved both the quantity and quality of information on food labels.

Food analysis is a massive subject and can't really be discussed here.