poor quality goji berries?

October 2, 2009 8:59 PM

I bought some dried goji berries from my local asian market. They taste/look/smell similar to every other dried goji berry I've tried. However, according to the nutrition information on the package, they are different from other goji berries...

According to the package, for 50 grams of dried berries, there are 30 calories, less than one gram of protein, 0% RDA of Vitamin A/C & Iron, and 1% RDA of calcium.

That is very different from the stats given on this site:
http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-eatraw-tibetan-goji-berries-i119927

My goji berries are packed by the "Xin Chang Trrading Company"

So what's more likely- did I buy really poor quality goji berries that are nutritionally inferior to others, or are the nutrition stats on the package wrong?

These berries were about 1/2 the price of what I would have payed for the same amount at my local fancy health food store, but everything at this asian market is loads cheaper, which is why I love to shop there.

posted by skjønn to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

I think it's more likely that the information is wrong. Even if they were poor quality (based on how they were dried, for example) then the vitamin values would be lower, but the calorie count would still be in the same ballpark. Most of the calories are coming from the sugar in the berries, after all. Every site I googled had similar calorie counts to the link that you posted.

I was wondering if they printed the nutritional info for fresh berries instead of dried. The nutritional value per gram is much lower before the water is removed. However, I can't seem to find fresh goji berry (or wolfberry) nutritional values.
posted by cabingirl at 10:17 PM on October 2, 2009

Although, I just found this info on goji berries(aka FRUCTUS LYCII) imported by Xin Chang that suggests a shipment was refused for pesticide contamination back in March 2009.
posted by cabingirl at 10:26 PM on October 2, 2009

Your question reminds me of this article, where two high school students found out that a popular juice drink had almost no vitamin c, even though the label noted that the berries in the drink had four times as much vitamin c as oranges.

See, the label wasn't lying exactly. Fresh berries really did have more vitamin c than oranges. But vitamins degrade, and when the drink was left on the shelf too long, the vitamin c degraded to nothing.

So, to answer your question, it's likely that the answer is none of the above. The website probably has information for fresh goji berries, but a lot of those vitamins degrade in dried berries. It has nothing to do with quality.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 12:22 AM on October 3, 2009

My cynical view is that information on food labels [needs citation]. OK for getting a rough idea of what's in there, but not to be taken as gospel truth.

Your berries are probably about the same as any other berries. It's hard to believe that a dried fruit company would actually send batches of berries out for testing at an analytical lab - it's expensive and adds no value for them. They probably just look up information online, or see what the competition puts on their labels. I wouldn't take your label too seriously; enjoy your berries. Eat a healthy balanced diet and you'll be fine.

True story: the only ingredients listed on one package of corn tortillas were water, lime, salt and calcium propionate. That's right, they left out the corn.
posted by Quietgal at 8:30 AM on October 3, 2009