How do I find nutritional values of unusual stuff like rose petals, elderflowers etc. for cooking?!
Answers: I have a hobby making diabetic, low G.I. and gluten free preserves for friends and family that has expanded to cover friends of friends, and friends of friends, friends (if you know what I mean) and I need to put nutritional information on the jars for obvious reasons. I mainly use produce I grow or can buy inexpensively. At the moment I have elderflowers and rose petals but can't find nutritional information.
I used to make those nutritional tables for a food company. Basically the ingredients are listed in order of most to least content. If the packaging stipulates "Rose Petal Jam" Then you must contain a percentage of said rose petals as the first ingredient (ie Rose Petals (%63), Sugar (%12),) etc. You can send it to a lab or do it by weight. The table of fat, saturated fats etc can pretty much only be done by a food technician- you get the basic figures and calculate how it translates from serving to entire package contents. I Believe if its just for friends, only ingredients are necessary. But if this is looking like a small business, correct labelling information is essential if you don't wanna spend some time in the slammer over food. Hope this helps!
Have you tried calorieking.com?
I heard that it costs about 1500 dollars per item to send it to a laboratory and have the Nutrition Facts evaluated. As long as you list all of the ingredients on the label (in order of most abundant to least abundant) then I don't think people mind too much about the precise Nutrition Facts of health foods. Only people who are not health-conscious and shop in mainstream supermarkets care about that stuff.
My best advice is to go to a health food store that sells herbs and such, find the book section, start reading... There is tons of information for you.
Or you might try calling or writing to companies that sell herbal supplements.