Who is in charge of serving sizes on packages?
CashierCantin
Posts: 206 Member
I have always wondered who is in charge of serving sizes on packages.
Sometimes it makes me think they do it just to mess with us!
I grabbed a dill pickle half to put in my lunch and when I looked at the label for my diary and it said a serving was HALF of a HALF.
Why not just say its the whole half for 10 calories?
SMH! LOL
Sometimes it makes me think they do it just to mess with us!
I grabbed a dill pickle half to put in my lunch and when I looked at the label for my diary and it said a serving was HALF of a HALF.
Why not just say its the whole half for 10 calories?
SMH! LOL
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Replies
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It's up to the manufacturer. Some are ridiculous, like a 20 oz bottle of soda... Who just drinks 8 oz and puts the rest in the fridge? Makes little to no sense to me at all, just a way to trick consumers into thinking something is healthier when they don't realize the entire container is far more than one serving.0
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Seriously good question. I've always wondered why someone figured there was 2 1/2 servings in a tiny, 5 oz can of tuna :grumble:0
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Can any adult seriously just eat an actual serving of cereal? Why say 3/4 cup instead of the full cup. Just say a cup and be done with it. I can't eat just one cup. I eat Cheerios and 2 cups is a good portion without it being overly piggish. One cup barely covers the bottom of my cereal bowl.0
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They are often set to be able to say a certain <something> per serviing.
Like 0 trans fat per serviing (even tho the product contains trans fat). Or X mg sodium per serviing, which may be the case with a dill pickle. Or even "only 100 calories per serviing" but the tiny box contains 2 servings.0 -
My husband brought home a chocolate bar the other day. The serving size was 6 squares. There were 16 squares on the whole bar :noway:0
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Can any adult seriously just eat an actual serving of cereal? Why say 3/4 cup instead of the full cup. Just say a cup and be done with it. I can't eat just one cup. I eat Cheerios and 2 cups is a good portion without it being overly piggish. One cup barely covers the bottom of my cereal bowl.
Get smaller bowls.
I almost always eat two servings of cereal as well. Tuna was another good example. I eat the whole can most times.0 -
Marketing is a big reason. Could also be a reasonable serving size. If people actually ate listed serving sizes without increasing frequency, there would be far fewer overweight folks.0
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I am convinced that 'they' want the calories per serving to be lower than a certain number for breakfast foods, snacks etc. I think it's crazy. At least the soda companies are starting to lable what the whole can is for calories.
I think it's nuts that a crunchy granola bar, packaged with 2 in it...is labled as 2 servings...I eat the whole thing! ...hmmm, perhaps why I need to lose 50 pounds? The commercial always shows the skinny gal sharing the package.
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Almost everything i've ever seen has screwed up portion sizes. Like poptarts..... i serving is 1 poptart not 2 in the package...ramen noodles is half the package.....i don't remember what brand but once i saw 1/4 c of ice cream...really!?!??! Or on bisquick a serving is 1/3 cup but recipes always call for 1 cup.... they just never make sense0
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They are often set to be able to say a certain <something> per serviing.
Like 0 trans fat per serviing (even tho the product contains trans fat). Or X mg sodium per serviing, which may be the case with a dill pickle. Or even "only 100 calories per serviing" but the tiny box contains 2 servings.
To be fair, anything with any saturated fat will contain naturally occurring trans fat. The levels usually refer to artificially created trans fats. Trans fats are naturally occurring, but in very, very small percentages to the total number of saturated fatty acid molecules in the food.0 -
Cereal, tuna, crackers all are measured (by me) by digital scale.
I do eat 1 serving of Cheerios... I used to not, but I do now!
But yes, 1 poptart as a serving is foolish!
I guess it's for quick glance "oh hey this is pretty low cal" as you are throwing it into the cart...0 -
I was pissed when I realized a block of ramen noodles was 2 servings!0
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Can any adult seriously just eat an actual serving of cereal? Why say 3/4 cup instead of the full cup. Just say a cup and be done with it. I can't eat just one cup. I eat Cheerios and 2 cups is a good portion without it being overly piggish. One cup barely covers the bottom of my cereal bowl.
Guilty. But I drink a whole cup of extra milk with it and it still doesn't keep me as full as the same calories worth of egg and toast 0 -
And using the poptart as an example-they put TWO in a pouch but its not recloseable. Now what do you do?
LOL
Some good examples and glad I'm not the only one seeing this.
I had no idea Ramen was 2 servings. Wow! I'll have to tell my hubby that.
As for "if everyone ate the serving size there wouldn't be any overweight people"....there would also be a lot of cranky upset irritable skinny people who have 1/2 chunks of pickles, 1/2 opened cans of tuna and one stale pop tart laying around their kitchen LOL0 -
They are often set to be able to say a certain <something> per serviing.
Like 0 trans fat per serviing (even tho the product contains trans fat). Or X mg sodium per serviing, which may be the case with a dill pickle. Or even "only 100 calories per serviing" but the tiny box contains 2 servings.
To be fair, anything with any saturated fat will contain naturally occurring trans fat. The levels usually refer to artificially created trans fats. Trans fats are naturally occurring, but in very, very small percentages to the total number of saturated fatty acid molecules in the food.
True. Off point of my post, but still true.0 -
What I love is how much of a difference there is between cooked & un cooked weights. (I weigh everything on my food scale) I understand that they don't know how you're going to cook something (tater tots for instance) but it kinda seems unreasonable to weigh out, section off and bake each serving separately for a family of 4! :grumble:0
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Marketing is a big reason. Could also be a reasonable serving size. If people actually ate listed serving sizes without increasing frequency, there would be far fewer overweight folks.
It would depend on how many different foods they were eating. Serving sizes are not designed to fulfill any standard diet. They are for marketing and/or misleading purposes by the manufacturer.0 -
Your comments are cracking me up cashier. Also on baby carrots serving size is 14. I don't sit there and eat 14 carrots with a sandwich. Usually just 4-5.0
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Also when they give prepared and unprepared counts. Um I'm not planning on eating the pasta or cake mix raw really??? Lol0
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Marketing is a big reason. Could also be a reasonable serving size. If people actually ate listed serving sizes without increasing frequency, there would be far fewer overweight folks.
It would depend on how many different foods they were eating. Serving sizes are not designed to fulfill any standard diet. They are for marketing and/or misleading purposes by the manufacturer.
I agree, i don't think that the serving size is all a person should eat of something in a single meal, it's just a unit of measuring to be able to help people track what they're eating if they so choose.
I'm sure they could put two pop tarts info on the box, but what if you're splitting it, it's easier to multiple by 2 than divide by 2. Plus it looks good on the box that it only has X calories...0 -
I really wish they would package the PopTarts individually. LIke, I WANT to only eat one, but I don't want that other PopTart getting all stale.
OK, I want to eat, like, four but I know one is what I shoudl eat...0 -
Also when they give prepared and unprepared counts. Um I'm not planning on eating the pasta or cake mix raw really??? Lol
I like it when they do that for stuff like Mac & cheese. I used to use skim milk, but the prepared calorie count was for if I used 1 or 2% milk. I use whole milk now, if I logged the prepared calories I'd be underestimating the amount of calories in the food. So for some things having a unprepared count is very helpful.0 -
I agree with the prepared / unprepared for mixes because you can add different ingredients like for the cake mix you could do the soda cake instead of the oil & eggs and whatnot.0
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Big difference in prepared and unprepared popcorn. Kernels anyone?0
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Can any adult seriously just eat an actual serving of cereal? Why say 3/4 cup instead of the full cup. Just say a cup and be done with it. I can't eat just one cup. I eat Cheerios and 2 cups is a good portion without it being overly piggish. One cup barely covers the bottom of my cereal bowl.
I agree with you on that. I once poured 3/4 of a cup and looked at all like "WTF?". Who eats just 3/4 cereal?? Lol.0 -
It's due to the "labelling requirements"
Rules allow them to label anything with under 0.5 grams of fat in a "serving" as 0 grams of fat...
have a look at.. what's a big offender for a good example... oh yes those "butter sprays"
0 calories... 0 fat... but if you look at the ingredients... oil.... what's going on?
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/848040-butter-spray-what-what
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/979044-lawsuit-against-i-can-t-believe-it-s-not-butter-eeek
What they "term" a serving of something like 1.25 sprays... (how can you even get a 1/4 spray it's either a spray or it's not) which may well be 0 calories, but when you use the whole bottle for 900 ish calories...0 -
Also when they give prepared and unprepared counts. Um I'm not planning on eating the pasta or cake mix raw really??? Lol
I like it when they do that for stuff like Mac & cheese. I used to use skim milk, but the prepared calorie count was for if I used 1 or 2% milk. I use whole milk now, if I logged the prepared calories I'd be underestimating the amount of calories in the food. So for some things having a unprepared count is very helpful.
I agree. I often substitute ingredients for what is suggested on a package so I like to know the details for just what is in the package.0 -
The one that gets me is a frozen pizza I occasionally get and a serving is 1/5 of the pizza. It used to be 1/4 which was so much easier to measure out. I have a hard enough time cutting it into equal halves. never mind equal fifths! I just cut as normally and have to put this in as a fraction of a whole pizza.0
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Big difference in prepared and unprepared popcorn. Kernels anyone?
That one is ridic. I think by law they have to give you the unprepared amount or something. Or maybe someone out there really just eats the microwave popcorn kernels.0 -
The one that gets me is a frozen pizza I occasionally get and a serving is 1/5 of the pizza. It used to be 1/4 which was so much easier to measure out. I have a hard enough time cutting it into equal halves. never mind equal fifths! I just cut as normally and have to put this in as a fraction of a whole pizza.
Why not just multiply it by 5 to get the total for the whole pizza & then divide that number by however many slices you cut it into?0
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