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Nutritional values for medical diets when food shopping in Canada

This blog contains the unedited posts of a Ukrainian man who successfully moved to Victoria, BC via CUAET. Content posted with permission.

Wow, in Canada the nutritional values tables on foods are organized in a quite misleading manner, which is dangerous for my medical state.
1. They don’t specify the exact amount of salt at all. In Europe/Ukraine the exact total amount is specified in grams. In Canada, it’s specified in mg of sodium per a random “serving” which is different for all kinds of products (see point 2). For example, I should limit my salt intake to 5 grams/day or less, but about total sodium I’m yet to find out, and then calculate it for all meals.

2. ALL amounts in the nutritional values table are specified for different serving sizes. For example: “per 1 hotdog” or “per a 73 gram serving of ground” or “per 3 slices of bread”. This is enormously inconvenient if you must compare different products to find ones containing the least relative amount of protein (or salt) and if you must limit your daily protein intake to 65 grams per day or less. In Europe/Ukraine, it’s specified per 100 grams for any foods, so I could calculate: ok, today I can eat 100 grams of product A and 300 grams of product B and 500 grams of bread per day. In Canada, it’s going to be a very vague and fluid list, like 3 hotdogs of brand X and 1 hotdog of brand Y and 1/5 of a plate of ground and 8 slices of bread, and this list gonna include an unknown variety of variables every time.

Thus, I gotta use a calculator a lot in stores to find the lowest protein amount foods at stores and create my own per 100 gram tables. I realized that over 24 hours I consumed 580 grams of specific veggie hotdogs which are not good for me at all because of much protein in them (20g per 100g), because I mistook them for safe 8 gram per 100 g protein hotdogs based on misreading the nutritional values table, that’s very risky.

If you must limit your daily intake of salt or protein, sugar, or other nutrients, be careful and always use a calculator when shopping in Canada to convert grams per slices, servings, and links into grams per 100 grams.

#foodshopping #nutritionalvalue #saltintake #proteinintake #diet

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