So I just got some coffee from the kitchen area at work and noticed todays selection of office goodies. Yes, each day there is SOMETHING for free (mostly donuts, cookies, or muffins). Today was a package of "Otis Spunkmeyer banana muffins". Just for curiosity sake, I took a look at the nutritional label. Here, the serving size is "half a muffin" and the count was 220 calories! These are small little muffins and nobody is going to eat a half of one. If you are going to eat a muffin you are going to eat the entire thing and that would be 440 calories alone! How is that even possible that something can be that calorie dense? Its fascinating to me and disturbing at the same time.
What annoys me the most is serving sizes on packages. Why doesn't the FDA require rational serving sizes? If it is a muffin, the serving size should be a muffin. Its a game being played to distort the reality of what you are eating. I'm usually not one for government regulation, but making things rational might help to shock people into seeing the reality of what they are eating.
If we had real labelling maybe we could avoid things like Uno's Chicago grill having an "individual" Uno Classic pizza (small round pizza meant for 1 person) that is listed as 770 calories per serving. However, that individual pizza is listed as 3 serving sizes. A pizza designed for 1 person that is even named "individual" and it is 3 serving sizes?? You eat the entire thing and it is 2310 calories! Almost everyone would be well over their entire calories for the day just eating that one thing.
In the past was food just as caloric but people were sensible enough to eat less? I don't think so. I think food manufacturers are designing foods with as much fat and calories as possible because this is what makes us addicted to them. High fat and extremely high calorie foods are addicting and that is what makes money. Its sad.
So serving sizes are out of wack with reality and food manufacturers are packing in as much calories as humanly possible. I'm surprised the obesity epidemic is not worse.
*rant over*