Nutritionals For Fermented Foods
I have asked a question before on here about nutritional for fermented foods but, I am still in need of help. With the new nutritional labeling requirements, potassium now has to be on the the Nutrition Facts. We ferment food as in cauliflower, carrots, jalapeno's, banana peppers, green bell and red bell peppers, pickles, mixed vegetables etc. Does anyone ferment food and know a website or program that we can use to figure out nutritional without sending them out to an outside lab. A customer has stated that the potassium changes when fermenting verses acidification. We ferment and then add a vinegar, water, salt, sodium benzoate, and calcium chloride brine to our vegetables. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You!
I have asked a question before on here about nutritional for fermented foods but, I am still in need of help. With the new nutritional labeling requirements, potassium now has to be on the the Nutrition Facts. We ferment food as in cauliflower, carrots, jalapeno's, banana peppers, green bell and red bell peppers, pickles, mixed vegetables etc. Does anyone ferment food and know a website or program that we can use to figure out nutritional without sending them out to an outside lab. A customer has stated that the potassium changes when fermenting verses acidification. We ferment and then add a vinegar, water, salt, sodium benzoate, and calcium chloride brine to our vegetables. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You!
Hi JPortz,
I don't work in the fermentation business, but I'm pretty familiar with nutritional/labeling laws. Honestly, the best method for you is to send to an outside lab; given your customer has knowledge that potassium levels may vary with processing. Also, there is a small amount of potassium in even sodium benzoate, so you really should be taking into account the other ingredients you are adding to your foods. Since the ingredients may vary between your company and other companies that ferment foods, you really should not rely on nutritionals from those other companies; as they may not be similar enough to yours. You could try to calculate nutritional panels for 2-3 of those products analytically and then compare them to what you get at the lab. If the results vary drastically, then there's likely to be chemical changes in processing and you should rely on lab testing for your nutritional panels. If your analytical results match the lab results, you're probably ok to calculate analytically. If it were me, I'd probably just stick with the outside lab and play it safe.
QAGB