Journal timothy's Journal: Now I get to share this complaint 6
I'm not the first to notice it, but for the record: all those required nutritional labels on foods (about which I have mixed feelings, rather than straight opposition) are annoyingly inconsistent in their units.
Ice cream: cups (suprisingly, only 300 cals / cup for the one I just had a bit of)
Vingar: oz
Others: grams
Chocolate chips: chips
It's hard to measure ice cream in cups without melting it a fair amount, and I couldn't find a kitchen scale, so I guesstimate I just had 3 ounces, from the cup measure I attempted to squash it in
I don't like how big these labels are, nor that there isn't (say) a less obtrusive labeling requirement, in the mode of TinyURL-generated web addresses -- so the info would be available but not stealing quite so much space, unless the maker *wanted* it to (which could only mean that the maker thought that the customers wanted it). But, eh, it truly is a weights-and-measures measure.
I wonder about things like farm-stand jelly, and apples bought at market
The whole container (Score:2)
I think food labels should be required to list the nutritional values of the whole container of food.
Food companies put unrealistic serving sizes to make the food appear less bad for you, like two cookies, five potato chips, or half a bottle of soda.
What percentage of people eat just two cookies or five chips? How many people split their sodas with a friend?
Re: (Score:2)
I think food labels should be required to list the nutritional values of the whole container of food.
Why? Do you think I'm more likely to eat a pound of butter, or an entire bottle of ketchup in one sitting, than 5 chips or 2 cookies? I think I'm pretty safe when I say that I'm much better estimating how many handfuls (approx. 5) chips I've eaten, than I am at trying to figure out if I ate 1/53 (or was it 1/57) of a bottle of ketchup with my fries, and then trying to divide the total number of calories in the bottle by 53 (or 57).
In short, I think the system we have now is pretty bad. But, everything else
Re: (Score:2)
If companies want to include the amount of nutrients and fat contained in their recommended serving in addition to the amount of the container as a whole.
They'd probably be happy to include a smaller number along with the (probably very large) numbers that would be appearing on their packaging.
Most foods are not condiments. People may not be likely to drink a whole bottle of ketchup, but many are likely to eat a whole bag of chips or a whole sandwich, regardless of the fact that the containers of said foods
Floor Wax and Dessert Topping! (Score:1)
In response to both above comments, I don't think they're incompatible :)
For instance, at least for *calories* (rather than running the whole spreadsheet to say RDA for everything in it), it could say "This package contains approximately 7850 calories" ...
It does make sense to offer a "convenient or likely size" measure, and I'm grateful for that, except for the inconsistent units. This is one of the few times that I like metric, though -- a "total container" and "per gram" calorie count would be good to ha
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"All that hard," no, but annoying -- mostly because the serving size chosen is sometimes pretty random. Why should a can of beans contain two and a *half* servings? (As the ones I just bought say. Who gets the half?) Yes, I can think of a reason -- because some servings are easier to deal with, and may even represent something like you'd expect a person to eat at once sitting, like 100g of smoked turkey, or 8 ounces of orange juice.
However, I won't complain about the half-serving nonsense if they just name