Hello, I'm Kawatani, the owner of Fusubon.
Recently, the number of international supermarkets has increased, and it is becoming more common to see ingredient labels from overseas.
Or maybe you are worried about what to eat while traveling abroad.
So today, I would like to introduce how to read the carbohydrate content on nutritional labels overseas (in the United States) .
Carbohydrates overseas ≠ Sugars, Sugars overseas ＝ Sugars
Look at the label of the blueberries above. Sugars means sugar, so many people may think that it is the amount of carbohydrates, but sugars is actually sugar.
In other words, sugars are just a combination of monosaccharides and disaccharides, and do not include carbohydrates such as starch. (If you are wondering what the difference between carbohydrates and sugars is, or if it sounds too confusing, please see the article on the difference between zero sugar and zero carbohydrates .)
As for carbohydrates, just like in Japan, carbohydrates = sugar + dietary fiber are used.
| Total Carbohydrate = Carbohydrate Dietary Fiber = Dietary Fiber So, carbohydrate = Total Carbohydrate - Dietary Fiber |
It will be.
Another thing that is often misleading is that ingredient labels in the US are shown in units of the amount that would be used at one time.
Also, there doesn't seem to be a specific word in English that refers to the Japanese term "carbohydrate." That being said, it doesn't seem to be the case that sugars are called "Sugars" as the label says, so it seems that you just have to recognize Carbohydrate as carbohydrate and Sugar as sugar, and then understand it according to the situation. (If anyone knows more about this, please let me know!) Incidentally, there is also a more academic term, "saccharide," which seems to refer to sugars in Japanese.
Anyway, since this is about how to read nutrition labels overseas, all you need to know is that "Sugars" on the label refers to sugars!
Let's actually calculate the carbohydrate content from nutritional information tables overseas.
Calculate the amount of carbohydrates per serving (57g in this case) from the overseas labeling
Carbohydrates = Total Carbohydrate = 43 g
Dietary Fiber＝2 g
Carbohydrates = Total Carbohydrate - Dietary Fiber, so the total carbohydrates is 41g.
In this case, we are looking at pasta. Since Sugars = 0, we can see that the pasta dough does not contain any sugar.
How to calculate carbohydrate content per 100g from overseas labels
This is the carbohydrate content per 57g, so per 100g it contains 41 x 100/57 = 72g of carbohydrates. (By the way, when pasta is boiled, it absorbs water and the starch is released during boiling, so the carbohydrate content per 100g after boiling is lower than when it is dry. Just for reference.)
Protein and fat content, too
Just pick up the numbers from the Total Fats section for fats and the Protein section for protein and you'll be fine.
We hope this will be helpful when looking at the carbohydrate content of overseas products or overseas websites.
see you!
