Just the facts please

As if facts are some carved-in-stone truths capable of withstanding all sorts of challenge and change. Ya, right! Getting to an agreed upon truth or fact is tough. Solid, liquid or gas. Easy enough. Temperature nomenclature is fairly sound. We know there’s no difference between 32 degrees Fahrenheit and 0 degrees Celsius. People trust that both scale systems are comparable and accurate. So temperature has fact.

But if there is a wind, some people want a measure to account for how cold it really feels. They expect a measure to reflect context. That’s when accuracy and truth begin to wobble. And what if the scales used for measuring temperature varied and changed according to different circumstances? What would happen to the perceived veracity of temperature as a fact?

What many consumers likely don’t realize is that “Nutrition Facts” are fairly unreliable, and may not really constitute “facts” at all. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency expects foods to test within a certain range, give or take 20% of the reported values on a nutrition facts table. But how do companies arrive at these measures in the first place? This is a huge area of controversy in the food processing industry.

First off is that “facts” can be generated in two ways– 1) by computer on the basis of what goes in to a product, and 2) by actual product testing after the product is made. Advocates of computer modeling assert that the computer data in the Genesis computer program accounts for baking or boiling and other processing points that can affect nutritional content. But this assertion makes the companies that test actual product samples hot under the collar. They just can’t believe the numbers that the computers generate. One testing company official told me that in comparisons between actual tests and computer results the computer numbers are “all over the map!”

Actual product testing though is considerably more expensive, usually running about $600 to $700 more per product than computer generated product analysis. This adds up quickly. They can only cite the risks of prosecution, conviction and product recall for under or over-reporting nutritional content claims as incentive to pay the extra money. But 20% leaves a fair bit of room for error. Not quite within my definition of “fact”.

I hear all these arguments as BoldRush prepares for the compulsory nutrition facts tables that have to be in place by December 2007. We also need them to sell in the American market. But then again, there’s a problem. The U.S. tables are not the same as the Canadian tables. The daily requirements on which the percentage of daily requirements figure is based, differs between the two countries, even though, as people, Americans and Canadians are basically the same.

Nutritive content also varies by serving size, so that comparing a bottle of Bolthouse to BoldRush for nutritive content doesn’t work without a calculator. Comparisons require common denominators. It may work well for McDonalds products, using the same testing and the same standards. See how you can make an informed decision between a Filet O’Fish or a McChicken burger. It works. But for those of us with fewer resources to produce figures that standardize and create data for useful comparisons, the data on those little white tables fails to completely inform our dietary choices.

Daily requirements of different vitamins, minerals and protein also vary by level of physical activity, gender, age and importantly weight. With protein requirements at .8 grams per kilogram of body weight, the variation in daily requirement can be considerable. And don’t get me started on the different types of protein!

It’s a box alright (feels like a regulatory straight jacket at times). A compulsory box called nutrition facts–don’t think so–they are really only good guesses.