COME LEGGERE UN’ETICHETTA – parte 1: l'elenco degli ingredienti - IoBoscoVivo Srl

HOW TO READ A LABEL – part 1: the list of ingredients

Among the mandatory information that must be included on a food label, the list of ingredients certainly plays a fundamental role! Let's learn together to read the label correctly and you will see how much important information you can find for each product!

As we have already seen in previous articles, food labeling is well regulated by EU Regulation no. 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

But let's see what exactly this regulation tells us about the LIST OF INGREDIENTS!!

EU Reg. 1169/11, in article 18, informs us that the list of ingredients must have a heading on the label or be preceded by an adequate indication consisting of the word «INGREDIENTS:» or which in any case includes it; it also tells us that the list must contain all the ingredients that make up the food and that these must be inserted in decreasing order of weight, as recorded at the time of their use in the manufacturing of the food.

This is fundamental information to help us understand the actual quality of the product we are buying: if we find sugar as the first ingredient, or even worse "glucose syrup", it is better to ask ourselves a few more questions about the type of product we are choosing to buy! The same goes for salt, which must appear among the last elements of the list (... in the IoBoscoVivo Velvet Creams for example, you will be able to verify that this is exactly the case!) or for the type of flour used in baked products: if you are purchasing a product " wholemeal” check that the food is actually composed of wholemeal flours or if refined flours also appear among the ingredients and above all that these are not present in quantities greater than wholemeal flours!

By carefully observing all the ingredients listed you will notice some words with peculiarities perhaps in the writing font or in the background or with additional information, let's see why:

....if in the list you find a series of ingredients in brackets you are faced with a defined compound ingredient : that is, it contains several ingredients (e.g. breadcrumbs, margarine, chocolate); the IoBoscoVivo Shiitake and Curry Mushroom Soup for example contains curry, which is in turn composed of various ingredients such as mustard seeds, coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, salt, garlic, ginger, paprika, chilli which you will find all written in brackets next to the word “curry”.

…if in the list you find ingredients highlighted in bold, they are allergens . These must be expressed with a clear reference to the name of the substance or product which must be present in Annex II of EU Regulation 1169/11 itself (e.g. 'wheat flour', or 'wheat gluten').

It is mandatory that allergens are reported in a clearly distinct font, for example by size, style or background color, so that they can be identified easily and quickly.

…if in the list you find ingredients whose percentage is indicated, these are characterizing or QUID ingredients which we will go into more detail in the next article! However, an example of a characterizing ingredient is the Shiitake mushrooms of our IoBoscoVivo products!!

... finally, also pay close attention to the presence and therefore the number of food additives present in foods: these substances are added for example to preserve, color or sweeten the product and you can find them indicated by their specific name (e.g. ascorbic acid) or, alternatively, with the European authorization code (e.g. E300), preceded by the functional category to which it belongs (e.g. preservative).

Finally, a trick to evaluate the quality of a product is to evaluate the length of the list of ingredients: short lists or "clean labels", as you can ALWAYS find in all IoBoscoVivo products, are certainly a good starting point! Discover our products on the website https://ioboscovivo.com/ !

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