Serving Size

September 28th, 2006 by Potato

Via DJ Paradise, comes this article about serving sizes.

Yep, people have trouble determining what a serving size is sometimes. I think it was a really poor choice of words — “serving” — it makes you think of a serving platter at a restaurant or something. Most people automatically make serving = meal in their minds, but really servings are quite small (a total of 20-24 or so servings a day over your ~3 meals + snacks). 2 cookies, a kid’s sippy glass of milk, half a bowl of soup: portions that are much smaller than we tend to have experience with. Unfortunately in this case it’s not the companies, but the government that’s to blame for not only creating the discrepancy between portion size and serving size, but also for giving it the name “serving”. [Though whether we should blame the American or Canadian government is a bit of an open question; if in doubt, blame both]

Also, I highly recommend you all go to YouTube and search for “How it should have ended” — they’re a funny series of clips.

2 Responses to “Serving Size”

  1. Ben Says:

    Although the government decided the serving sizes, I’m sure there was probably much intense lobbying from the food industry while they were making their decision.

  2. Potato Says:

    Well, at the very least they do dick around with what a serving size is a fair bit (the government sets the standard, and they’re allowed to go from 1/2 to 2X that in order to find a convenient number, and even then they can stretch that a bit if it represents a single package or other convenient unit).