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a tricky question about tuna

pistachio

pistachio

Member
i wonder if anyone knows the answer to this one. i have used a 425g of safcol tuna for this analysis, but any tin seems to be the same. ok, so here's the deal.

a 425g tin of tuna contains 4 serves of 75g by drained weight (going by the nutritional panel).

the ingredients are 70% tuna, 15% oil, water and salt.

now 4 serves of 75g = 300g = 70%, so it stands to reason that the nutritional panel refers to the nutritional info of the TUNA ONLY.

SO, if you eat the whole tin, are you getting what is on the nutritional panel + 15% of 425g of olive oil? This amounts to about 64g of olive oil, which is obviously significant if you are calorie counting.

So, does the nutritional panel include the nutritional info of the olive oil? It seems as if it does not, as it refers to drained weight and it adds up to 300g, which is 70% of the tin weight, which is the listed ingredient % of tuna.

If it doesn't, that means if you eat a large tin of tuna you need to add 64g of fat to the total macros! :O
 
well.. i have coles (jap style) and a john west (in olive oil) 95g tins in front of me

JW says drained weight = 75g = 689kj, 918kj/100g
coles says serve size 95g = 372kj, 392kj/100g

per 100g,
coles vs JW
P = 17.9g vs 24.4g
F = 0.9g vs 13.6g
C = 3.6g vs <1g

an extra 12.7g of fat per 100g in the john west in olive oil suggests that it includes the oil left after you drain it. (the 918kj is exactly 24.4gP/13.6F, so it's either fatty tuna, or the olive oil...)

that help?

edit: the coles one has spring water in it, no added oil. the JW has olive oil/sunflower oil as the 2nd/3rd ingredients

calorieking suggests similar
http://www.calorieking.com.au/foods...PTEzODg4MTYwOCZwb3M9NCZwYXI9JmtleT10dW5h.html
http://www.calorieking.com.au/foods...PTEzODg4MTYwOCZwb3M9NSZwYXI9JmtleT10dW5h.html
 
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It's not that simple, as the tuna itself has a varying amount of fat (depending on type of tuna and brand of product, ie the processing etc).

I call bullshit on the coles one, no fat at all??? What is the point of eating fish if you aren't getting any of the good fish oils?

Anyway, I think I have resolved this. I simply called the head office. They answered me surprisingly quickly. The nutritionals are based on the drained weight and DOES NOT include the oil (except for whatever residual oil remains after the draining process.

So lesson learnt people, if you eat tuna (and count calories), don't forget to count the olive oil!! Unless you drain it of course.

That means the tins of tuna I have been having have about 250 calories more than I thought they did! (about 28g fat)
 
If I ever have tuna these days which isn't often I only have the tuna in springwater can't stand the stuff in oil. Tastes like someone has dipped my tuna in old deep fryer oil.
 
Really? I love the tuna in olive oil, plus I like having a bit of olive oil in my diet and its an easy way to get it.
 
pistachio said:
coles one, no fat at all??? What is the point of eating fish if you aren't getting any of the good fish oils?
Click to expand...

do you call bullshit on John west CalorieKing.com.au - Food Data. Nutrition information about your favourite food. fat, fibre, protein and more

grenseas
CalorieKing.com.au - Food Data. Nutrition information about your favourite food. fat, fibre, protein and more

and Sirena
CalorieKing.com.au - Food Data. Nutrition information about your favourite food. fat, fibre, protein and more

they are all about 1%fat when in brine
they are all roughly 10%fat when in oil

why would they use 10%fatty tuna in some cans, and 1% fatty tuna in other cans?
how do they make the 97% and 98% fat free versions?

except for whatever residual oil remains after the draining process
Click to expand...
so.. thats abotu 8-10grams of oil, that has soaked in and around the fish?

easy way to tell is to weight the entire contents of a can,
drain it of oil and measure the oil weight
then squish as much oil out as you can and weight that,
then measure weight of leftover..

safcol tuna in springwater Safcol Tuna with Spicy Red Chilli in Springwater 100g (126 calories & 23g protein)
tune-with-chilli-nut-panel.jpg


thats 1.6% fat too (but is from the "entire contents" so the water will "dilute" the % of P and F a bit, but only by 10%)

why would safcol use 1.6% fat tuna in one can, and 10% fat in another can?

regardless of what HQ says (they will just read off the can anyway) is not easy to work out precisely how much oil is in it
 
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Hmm, now that is bizarre.

Well now I have NFI on how to count the calories in the tin, unless I drain it.

Grrr, it wouldn't matter if it was only a small difference, but for a medium size tin, its 250 odd calories difference!!!
 
hang on..

70% tuna, which is say, 1.6%fat
15% oil, which is 100% fat

out of a 95g tin, 14.25g is fat from oil, 1.06g from the tuna itself

75g is drained weight = 66.5g tuna (70% of 95g) (of which 1g is fat) + 8.5g oil

so 66.5g tuna and 9.5g oil = 14.3% fat

slightly off the JW can "drained weight" stats (it had different drained weights for different flavours), but it all adds up pretty close...


well.. drain whole tin, and weigh the contents. you know there will be X% of total weight as tuna, with ~1.6% fat, and whatever the extra weight is, will be oil?
do it once and then you know from then on, not so painful :)
 
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oldcorollas said:
hang on..

70% tuna, which is say, 1.6%fat
15% oil, which is 100% fat

out of a 95g tin, 14.25g is fat from oil, 1.06g from the tuna itself

75g is drained weight = 66.5g tuna (70% of 95g) (of which 1g is fat) + 8.5g oil

so 66.5g tuna and 9.5g oil = 14.3% fat

slightly off the JW can "drained weight" stats (it had different drained weights for different flavours), but it all adds up pretty close...


well.. drain whole tin, and weigh the contents. you know there will be X% of total weight as tuna, with ~1.6% fat, and whatever the extra weight is, will be oil?
do it once and then you know from then on, not so painful :)
Click to expand...

I think you are right.

Ok, here is how I am going to do it.

185g tin at 81% tuna, 15% oil = 150g tuna + 28g oil

Using a springwater tin as the base, yellowfin tuna looks to be around 1.6% fat, 26% protein, so that would give us:

150g tuna = 39g protein, 2.4g fat
28g oil = 28g fat

So 39g protein, 30.4g fat per tin

This seems about right, or at the very least will be close enough to not be a cause for concern :)
 
pistachio said:
Point taken max, except that is a fair bit more expensive! Plus, you can't go past the convenience that the cans offer.

Don't get me wrong though, I love a nice thick, fresh, piece of fish, like butter in your mouth!
Click to expand...
Oh I wasn't posting it for that reason :) More so for the macronutrient breakdown so you had something to go on if you where having trouble working out the actually counts from the tin.

FYI, cost per kg is quite similar from what I've seen. But yes convenience and the like gives the win to the tin :D
 
If you can score the medium size tins for $2, it works out to be about $13/kg for the tuna, which is pretty decent.

Plus I consider the olive oil in there a bonus, as its hard for me to add anywhere else in my diet, except for my salad.

Pity there is so much salt in the tins though, probably even more than listed, as if you drain it (as they do for the nutritional info), I would think you would lose a fair portion of the salt.

So probably about 1g of salt per 185g tin :S

But all worth it for the convenience lol
 
pistachio said:
If you can score the medium size tins for $2, it works out to be about $13/kg for the tuna, which is pretty decent.

Plus I consider the olive oil in there a bonus, as its hard for me to add anywhere else in my diet, except for my salad.

Pity there is so much salt in the tins though, probably even more than listed, as if you drain it (as they do for the nutritional info), I would think you would lose a fair portion of the salt.

So probably about 1g of salt per 185g tin :S

But all worth it for the convenience lol
Click to expand...
Yeah good point, I didn't think about the specials etc.

Salt = no issue :)

See posts #179 and #180
http://ausbb.com/nutrition-diet/153...post-workout-anabolic-window-gi-myths-18.html
 
MaxBrenner said:
Yeah good point, I didn't think about the specials etc.

Salt = no issue :)

See posts #179 and #180
http://ausbb.com/nutrition-diet/153...post-workout-anabolic-window-gi-myths-18.html
Click to expand...

I had read those, still seems like a lot of salt to get from just one small element of my diet each day.

But I'll take your word for it :)

Rambodian said:
Wowzuz, who would of thought tuna could be so bloody complicated lol.
Click to expand...

Lol, the ironic part is that you would think with the nutritional panel and serving size that it would be less complex.
 
pistachio said:
If you can score the medium size tins for $2, it works out to be about $13/kg for the tuna, which is pretty decent.
Click to expand...

I buy the coles 185g ones in olive oil for $1.70 per tin and I drain the oil. Always have. They taste great but I can't handle too much of the olive oil...

One a day as part of my meal plan which I just posted up having taken inspiration from yours mate.

Cheers,
Mike
 
MikeW said:
I buy the coles 185g ones in olive oil for $1.70 per tin and I drain the oil. Always have. They taste great but I can't handle too much of the olive oil...

One a day as part of my meal plan which I just posted up having taken inspiration from yours mate.

Cheers,
Mike
Click to expand...

Thats pretty cheap, i prefer the sole mare though. Always tastes good. I'm going to see if i can suss out a bulk supplier. I always dunk the tuna in the oil tho, seems like a good way to get some olive oil in the diet.

Obviously if you are consuming 1000 calories per day less tho, this is probably not going to make life easy for you!

Looking pretty solid in your avatar btw mate
 
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