Quote:
Originally Posted by Tarisaande
Serving sizes on packages are pretty much arbitrary. Usually they are common units rather than nutrient balanced. Just get out a scale or portion out the serving in an amount YOU feel is appropriate. Just because the serving size is two tablespoons of peanutbutter doesn't mean you need to eat exactly 2 TBSP at once.
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Of course, but then that is to entirely miss the point. It is the misleading claims placed in massive writing on the front of the products and the real information hidden on the back. I've been an avid food reader for most of my life and I love to find out the hidden secrets and debunk the claims, but in reality this is a minority passtime, and for the country (US or Britain) as a whole where many people need to lose weight but aren't quite ready for the full-on commitment of doing it, this sort of information lulls them into a false sense of security - oh wow, these cakes are only 102 calories per portion (for 1/4 of a muffin!)
Where does it stop? What is the point that it tips over from being devious marketing to being an outright lie? I could market M&Ms as only 8 calories per portion if I placed the portion size as one sweet, so if people are going to be allowed to comment in writing on their food products about the content of a portion then that portion should be something that a reasonable person is likely to consume. If you pre-pack an item in a way that is clearly for immediate consumption such as a single muffin in plastic wrap sold at the counter in a coffee shop with a same-day sell by date then a portion is a WHOLE muffin. If you sell muffins in a packet of 4 in a grocery store with a best before date for 6 days' hence then the idea of serving up half a muffin is slightly more acceptable, but I still think they should just be smaller muffins.
Sour cream is sold in 3oz tub here, so not sure how many ounces are in a pint pot. Then again, a pint is 20oz here, so if it had only 15 in it that would be grounds for investigation. I'm not sure if you have the same symbol in other parts of the world, the big "e" that means the weight is somewhere near that amount, it's within the prescribed tolerances, which I forget. I think it's about 10% out either way, so a 100 gram bag of something could have 90 grams in one and 110 in the next. Of course manufacturers are going to take some advantage of that and aim to get close to the minimum amount they have to put in, why wouldn't you if the law allowed you to sell 15oz as if it were a US pint?
We get far more aspects of our behaviour from social conditioning and absorbing from our environment than from deliberate learning, if you go into the school cafeteria every day and you get served a massive heaping of fries then you grow up believing that to be a reasonable amount of food, and if you are suddenly faced with a genuine portion you feel robbed, no matter if you have just come from health class where they told you that's a proper sized portion.
And of course the other annoying thing about oversized portions is having to go home and repackage the whole lot yourself.
The minimum size I can buy chicken breasts in is 5 "portions" in a packet, except that those portions are all slightly under twice as big as they should be for a recommended adult's meal. To preserve all that chicken I have to take it home and then get it out of the packaging, cut off the bits of fat and skin that the machinery has missed and then weigh it, cut it and reseal it in bags for the freezer. Would be nice if having paid a premium (there isn't another choice on offer any more) for it to be butchered if they butchered it into appropriate sizes, not giant ones.
The truth is that if stuff is sold cut to size, the absolute vast majority of people are going to eat it that size. This is not an issue of what people who have already gone to the trouble to investigate these things are eating, it's what others are un-knowingly doing and the effect that has on all of us. Try serving a small child an appropriate amount of food in front of most other mothers and see how many calls are placed to social services that you are starving your child!
Nutrient "servings" rant
