Chapter 30 — Exercises

Three tiers. 🔄 retrieval; 🪞 reflection. ⚠️ Opens Part VI — most of these require an actual package.**

Tier 1 — Recall and Comprehension

R1. Give §30.1's three categories with three examples of each. ⚠️ What distinguishes them?

R2. ⚠️ Why should you always compare per 100 g? What is the salt-to-sodium conversion?

R3. ⚠️ Name four serving-size manipulations. What did the US 2016 update change?

R4. In what order are ingredients listed? ⚠️ What do the first three tell you?

R5. ⚠️ Name eight sugar aliases. How does using four instead of one change the label without changing the product?

R6. ⚠️ What is QUID, when is it triggered, and why is it described as the claim triggering the disclosure?

R7. ⚠️ What is the transatlantic difference on sugars? How does a European reader work around it?

R8. ⚠️ Where do declared nutrition values come from? What tolerance applies, and what does "0 g" sometimes mean?

R9. Give the FDA's rule of thumb for %DV. ⚠️ Why does the column not tell you which direction you want?

R10. ⚠️ Compare four front-of-pack schemes. What is Nutri-Score criticized for that Chapter 22 would predict?

R11. ⚠️ State the provenance/quantity distinction and its two-second test.

R12. Give seven regulated claims with roughly what they require. ⚠️ Which two mislead most, and why?

R13. ⚠️ Name six unregulated terms. What is §30.1's test for telling them apart?

R14. ⚠️ Which allergen labelling is reliable and which isn't? Why is "may contain" described as a labelling failure?

R15. ⚠️ What is the legal threshold for "gluten-free," and why does that claim have a number when most free-from claims don't?

R16. ⚠️ Distinguish "use by," "best before" and "display until." Which can you freeze against?

R17. ⚠️ Name six things a label does not tell you. Which of them IS on the panel but unread?

R18. Give the nine-minute protocol. ⚠️ What is the meta-step?

R19. ⚠️ What did §30.15 concede about whether label reading changes diets?

R20. ⚠️ Which categories of food carry no nutrition label, and which of those matters most?

Tier 2 — Application

A1. 🔄 Decode one. ⚠️ Take an actual package from your kitchen and run all nine steps. Record each.

A2. ⚠️ The QUID hunt. Find five products in your kitchen whose front names or pictures an ingredient.

a) For each, find the declared percentage. b) ⚠️ Which was lowest? c) Which surprised you most, and why?

A3. Sort the claims. Provenance or quantity?

a) "No added sugar" · b) "of which sugars: 4.2 g" · c) "Made with wholegrain" · d) "High in fibre" · e) "Farm assured" · f) "Reduced fat" · g) "Chicken (28%)" · h) "Natural flavourings" · i) "Source of protein" · j) "Nothing artificial"

⚠️ Then: which of the quantity claims can you verify from the panel?

A4. ⚠️ The two-granola exercise. Do §30.13's comparison with two real products in one category.

⚠️ Did the front-of-pack winner survive the back?

A5. Serving-size arithmetic. A snack pack declares 180 kcal per serving and contains 2.5 servings.

a) ⚠️ What is the pack's energy content? b) What is it per 100 g if the pack is 65 g? c) ⚠️ What will you actually eat? d) Which of those three numbers should drive the decision?

A6. ⚠️ The date-marking audit. Look in your fridge and cupboards.

a) ⚠️ Find three items past their best-before date. Assess each. b) Find anything approaching a use-by date. Can it be frozen? c) ⚠️ Estimate what you discard in a year on best-before dates alone.

Tier 3 — Analysis and Synthesis

S1. ⚠️ The design problem. §30.6 says any simple scheme must discard information.

a) Design your own front-of-pack scheme in under 30 words of rules. b) ⚠️ What does it discard, and who does that disadvantage? c) ⚠️ How would a manufacturer game it? Chapter 22 §22.10b's reformulation lesson.

S2. Nutri-Score and processing. The algorithm doesn't capture processing.

a) ⚠️ Construct a Group 4 product that scores A, and a Group 1 food that scores badly. b) Is that a flaw or a scope limitation? c) ⚠️ Could a scheme capture processing? Design it, then say what breaks (Chapter 22 §22.7).

S3. ⚠️ Regulation's asymmetry. §30.8 notes health claims are far more tightly controlled than the unregulated vocabulary.

a) ⚠️ Why has "natural" survived unregulated when "high fibre" hasn't? b) What would defining it cost, and who would object? c) ⚠️ Is the current arrangement defensible? Argue both sides.

S4. The QUID asymmetry. The EU/UK require QUID; the US doesn't. The US requires an added-sugars line; the EU/UK don't.

a) ⚠️ Which is the more valuable rule? Justify. b) Why has neither adopted the other's? c) ⚠️ Design the label you'd want, taking the best of both. What else would you add?

S5. ⚠️ Does label reading do anything? §30.15's concession.

a) ⚠️ Steelman the position that detailed nutrition panels are near-useless for behaviour change. b) Why might warning labels outperform detailed ones? c) ⚠️ If that's right, what should this chapter have been? Assess it honestly.

S6. 🔄 ⚠️ Label literacy is subtraction. §30.15's closing box.

a) List everything on a package you should stop reading. b) ⚠️ Is there a risk in that? What might you miss? c) ⚠️ Compare this to Chapter 17's ten-minute check. Both are filters. What do they have in common structurally?

🪞 Reflection

M1. ⚠️ Which product in your kitchen were you most wrong about?

M2. §30.7's distinction is two seconds. ⚠️ How many provenance claims have you paid a premium for?

M3. ⚠️ Do you throw food away on best-before dates? What would change if you stopped?

M4. ⚠️ The own-brand row in §30.13's costing. Have you compared an ingredients list against the branded version? Would you?

M5. 🔄 ⚠️ §30.15 concedes label reading is defensive rather than transformative. Does that disappoint you? What were you hoping a chapter about labels would do?