How I calculate

Nutrition: the recipe, ingredient by ingredient

I know how many grams of each ingredient are in a pouch. For each ingredient I have the nutrition per 100 g from the Norwegian Food Composition Table¹ or the label. Soya protein isolate and wheat gluten are not in the Norwegian table, so they come from USDA FoodData Central².

Energy is calculated with the energy factors in EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex XIV³: 17 kJ per gram of protein and carbohydrate, 37 kJ per gram of fat and 8 kJ per gram of fibre.

Protons are baked and dried. The water in the dough evaporates, so I calculate on the dry weight plus 3%, and add the flavour part on top.

Calculated from the recipe with the Norwegian Food Composition Table¹, USDA² and the labels. The laboratory analysis is coming and will replace the figures.

Vitamins and minerals

I don’t add vitamins. The vitamins and minerals in the pouch come from the ingredients and are calculated the same way, ingredient by ingredient. Golden syrup is from Livsmedelsverket⁴. With 330 ml protein milk, one meal covers at least 15% of the reference intake for 15 of them.

If an ingredient has no figure for a nutrient, it is shown as unknown, not as 0. That applies to vitamin K, manganese, iodine, biotin and chloride. Inulin has no table value and counts as 0, because it is purified fibre.

Protein from soya and wheat

The protein in Protons comes from soya protein isolate and wheat gluten. Soya is rich in the amino acid lysine. Wheat is rich in the sulphur amino acids methionine and cysteine. Together they complement each other.

USDA has no amino acid data for wheat gluten, so the table uses wheat flour. Most of the protein in wheat flour is gluten.

Linseed

Linseed gives the omega-3 fatty acid ALA and fibre. Raw linseed has cyanogenic glycosides, which can release cyanide. In P60 the linseed is baked into the Protons. In a 1993 study⁷, researchers found no cyanogenic glycosides in baked muffins with 15% linseed.

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, BfR⁸, considers linseed safe when people stay within the usual recommendation of up to 15 g per meal. One pouch of P60 has about 12.8 g of linseed.

Is it ultra-processed?

Partly, and I’ll say it straight. The protein comes from soya protein isolate and wheat gluten, which are processed ingredients. The rest is oats, bran, linseed and the flavour: nuts, berries or chocolate. I bake everything myself in Bergen, without oil and without sweeteners. The sweetness comes from a thin glaze of syrup.

Questions