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American Things My European Mind Can't Comprehend...

2600 calories in one drink! And 4.5 g of salt... (that's right folks,1770 mg of Sodium means >4500 mg of salt)😐

More than my daily calorie intake...
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Hmmmm... I have a sweet tooth! I have never seen that concoction but I expect I have eaten similar.

It would help if the label used consistent units, by quoting the serving in grammes as well, not fluid ounces.

I tried to find the equivalent but was unable to do so, but it may not mean much anyway, because this is a mixture of many ingredients each with its own density.


Nevertheless it is rather surprising to see that the makers admit giving you more than twice as much as the recommended daily serving of all fats, and three times of saturated fats; but not revealing that for sugar.

Those doses are presumably for adults, so worse for children.

I'm interested in your Na / NaCl comparison. Certainly 4.5g of salt seems a sizeable overdose given that the Oreo's sodium part is three-quarters of the recommended daily maximum; but I don't know what or how much the chlorine component does apart from using the metal to make an important electrolyte.

Just to add to the advertisers' muddle, European food labelling has to use kJ (kiloJoules) not "calories" - though they can give "kilocalories" as well. The Joule is of course the recognised unit of energy, but is the Oreo "calorie" some US unit no-one else uses? It was used in the UK in the past, but somehow 1 calorie now = 1000 calories in the world of food manufacturing.

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For example,

The tiny print on an Aldi pack of "Scottish Porage Oats" ("Packed in the UK" so have a pinch of salt for the actual country of manufacture!) gives 618kJ / 147kcal per 40g used to make one serving of porage.

I must admit I measure one serving by half a mug of dry oats to one and a half of milk and water. I don't weigh them. 40g = 1.4 oz., though.

Aldi also tells us the "reference intake" of potential energy for an average adult is 400kJ (0.4MJ!) or 2000 kcal.

Aha! So from the two labels and your quoted values, the processed-foods trade does think 1cal = 1000cal! (An exclamation, not the factorial sign.) Must make sense to someone, I suppose....

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Oh yes - Salt: One 40g dry-weight of these oats used to make one porage serving will give you <0.01g.

Ignoring some porage-lovers' optionally adding salt to the made cereal (and probably to anything else too), this rather shows up that Oreo salted-chocolate dessert.

Skimmed milk: ~1g salt / 1 litre. (From the label on a bottle in my fridge).

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For the record, I honestly cannot recall when I last added any salt to any food other than as specified in a recipe. When I buy fish-and-chips I accept the offered vinegar but decline the salt.

We do need Sodium and Potassium salts but only ~65g NaCl by Oreo's own figures.

Eat a reasonably good diet, and you do not need a salt-cellar on the table; and no amount of pretentious waffle about sea-salt in fancy pebble form makes nutritional sense.