How Healthy Is This Juice? Depends If You Speak English Or Spanish
Orchida Coconut Juice displays nutrition data in both English and Spanish, but the values aren't the same. The English nutrition panels claims that the juice has 240 calories and no fat. Apparently, our Spanish-speaking friends are supposed to read that as 150 calories and 2.5 grams of fat. Pictures of the strange panels, inside...
(Thanks to Eric!)
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Comments:
@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously: if you look on the right/english one, you can see to the left of it is another nutritional label
@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously: wow, that came out as me sounding like saying look at the left and me being a dick, i meant on the photo on the right, you can see towards the left of that one itself.. yeah still hard to explain :)
What concerns me is the Total Fat value. Something with less calories has 2.5 g of total fat (yet, only 2 g of Saturated Fat and 0g of Trans Fat) but the container with no fat at all, has 240 calories. I realize that the Spanish label might account for the missing .5g in a rounding error, but still, why does the other label show such different numbers?
@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously: It looks like two shots of the same can. The shot on the right shows the Spanish nutrition info is to the left of the English nutrition info.
I suspect the Spanish label is correct. Coconut meat has fat and some protein, so I don't see how the English label could be correct.
The Spanish one seems not to list the amount in millilitres that the serving size is in. Maybe that is something?
Um, who cares about the calories... why is there MEAT in the coconut juice???
Perhaps they got the translated labels mixed up, and one label is for a different drink? And as far as being concerned about meat in coconut juice, I believe they are referring to the fleshy part of the coconut.
@SNForrester: That means it's got a bit of the solid portion of the coconut as well as the juice. Kind of like the pulp in orange juice.
@Coles_Law: I agree. My guess is that the English label is simply for another product. If it was just a massive typo it would be quite a coincidence for the math to add up... in other words, for the quantity of macronutrients to accurately match the number of calories.
Also strange is that the English version has half as much calcium, but twice as much iron.
@MonstrousCosmos: If it's the nutritional information for another product, all the macronutrients would presumably still be correct for that number of calories. That's assuming they didn't make two mistakes, though, which may be too much credit to give them.
It's actually rather surprising to consider that the nutritional information on food is subject to typographical mistakes and/or misplacement like this. The difference between the two labels for several categories is certainly not trivial. I wonder how much harm this could cause to someone who needs to closely monitor their dietary intakes.
What's that? You say the label is wrong? Yea, whatever. There's no enforcement of that stuff and our target demo doesn't read labels. I think packaging gets the numbers from recent Baseball stats.
-Marketeer Bob
Also, look at the fact that carbohydrates is spelled incorrectly at the bottom of the english label.
I wouldn't drink it. It's from China, imported by CTC Foods International Inc Dba Oriental Trading Co. I don't even drink apple juice with concentrate from China. I don't trust their quality control and they've just been caught with bogus labels.
Maybe it's metric. ;)
Maybe one (or both) is from an alternative universe.
@formatc: for me, as a diabetic, the difference in listed carbs would be 116 points on my blood sugar. [each person's sensitivity to carbs/insulin is different]
so yeah, kind of the difference between me seeing well enough to drive and feeling ok, and feeling nauseated, dizzy and almost like i'm drunk.
the inconsistencies on food labeling like this are just one of the reasons i test my blood sugar every hour or two.
It is possible (however unlikely) that the nutritional labels were meant for the US and Mexico on the same can. Different countries can have different labeling and measurement requirements.
I purchase imported Japanese and Korean foods all the time, and the Japanese/Korean nutritional labels don't necessarily mesh with the US nutritional label.
@Zorantor:
Does sound revolting, even when you know exactly what they mean by "meat", though. Mmm, juice with meat in it. Yummy.
@formatc: Doesn't surprise me at all. The graphic designer probably has a template for all of this companies various beverages with that branding, and forgot to change out the english/sent the wrong save file to print/etc. It's a fairly easy mistake to make if you're not careful.
@nybiker:
Sugar my dear(: Sugar is calorific, and I do believe, at least, the calorie add-up is correct.
I shot the pics. It's the same can.
Well, something went horribly wrong didn't it?
The Spanish label is pretty screwy, the translations are weird, and the English one is off too.
Anyway, I asked the internet and it told me a few things.
1) The distributor is indeed "CTC Food International" (as somewhat visible on the side of the can). But, going under Oriental Trading Company, it may or may not have anything to do with legendary cheap-crap-selling outfit Oriental Trading.
2) The nutritional information on the Spanish label is likely correct, at least as far as the manufacturer is concerned, if not science. The CTC (er, sorry, "asianfoodgrocer.com") product info (in English) is here.
3) The juice is actually a product of Japan and is actually called "Orchids" not "Orchida."
@I Love New Jersey: That was my first thought. Just assuming the Americans would drink the whole can, hahaha.
That label is Inexcusable. A few years ago I designed US & Canadian labels for a very well know clothing company. Since I do not speak French, I thank God for the company's legal department for correcting any errors.
@I Love New Jersey: No, because it both states the serving size, and the amount of servings, as 1 can, just like in english. If the serving size in ml was different than the amount of servings, then the amount of servings wouldn't be 1 can.
Wow, genetically engineered to make Hispanic folks fatter. Impressive. They need to really tax it then if the sweet-drinks tax goes through.
Someone went through a lot of trouble with those labels, if you take the calories per gram from the bottom of the english label and do a little math with the values given on both the english and spanish labels, both add up correctly...
Fat: 8, Carbs: 4, Protein 4
thus
(8 * 2.5) + (4 * 30) + (4 * 2) = 148
vs.
(8 * 0) + (4 * 59) + (4 * 0) = 240
A little odd....
Simple explanation: The Spanish version is in metric units; the English in imperial...
Same thing happened with a mail in rebate offer I once saw... $30 in the English version and $50 in the Spanish version. I quickly turned mine in for the Spanish version... a check for $50.00 is still written in English in America.
@nybiker: The fat is probably an outright mistake. Juice rarely has fat. If it did, it would be oily.
@nybiker: It's apparent they just made the numbers up. It's coconut juice WITH MEAT, which does have fat. The juice itself doesn't unless it has coconut milk.
Some of the discrepancy may stem from the fact that the US has some different legal definitions than the rest of the world for product labeling. US manufacturers have lobbied to be able to fudge certain ingredients so their products will fall within the "fat free" and "low fat" guidelines. If anything, it's the US label you shouldn't trust. US firms are lobbying to water down other legal definitions, such as the "organic" definition. They are trying to fake out the buyers so people won't stop buying their products. However, I do agree with the comment above which points out that Chinese manufacturers adulterate their products with sub-par and even dangerous fillers and substitutions to make more money on the products. I don't even buy Hershey products anymore because they moved their factories to China. The reason manufacturing is cheaper overseas is because those backwater nations have no laws protecting workers, the environment, or product safety. If you want first-world standards for your food and goods, you have to buy from first-world manufacturers. And that especially goes for food safety.
@RvLeshrac: That works for the percentages on the RDA stuff, but the grams and milliliters should be the same no matter what the language or country.
Excepting that different countries have different legal requirements for how nutritional information is derived.
Are those pics from two labels on the same can, or from two different cans of the same product?