I am glad to see this. I’m not much for counting calories (absolutely no patience for it), but it’s been such a little glaring piece of marketing gimick as almost everything under the sun is not new, to the swift, or actually eaten in 150 calorie increments. Anything can look like an acceptable indulgence if its serving size is artificially reduced, but no one eats a third of a candy bar at a time.
Meditate on that, o bhikkhus, as you eat your Superbowl guacamole (in my experience, serving size roughly the mass of Earth, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.)
9 comments
February 7, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Charlieford
Very nice. I must say, though, I’m not a big fan of endings such as “so, too, may the American future be.” (I’m allowed to say that and not be a twit because I do it all the time.) Whenever something I write doesn’t sit a day or two before submission, I find those statements, and then a little philosopher plops down on my shoulder and says, “‘May’?! ‘May’?! ‘The future ‘may’ involve such and such’?! You need a Ph.D. to know that?” That little quibble aside, great stuff. I’ll be using it in class.
February 7, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Charlieford
I don’t know what this is doing here, I thought I was commenting on Silbey’s piece . . .
February 7, 2010 at 7:56 pm
kathy a.
well, ok, then i’ll comment. the advertised serving sizes are often insane. or hard to figure — how does one decide what 1/16th of a box or bag is?
i should probably worry about calories, but i hate diets. instead, i try to worry about salt, because [like a lot of us who have gotten to a certain age] i need to limit that due to high blood pressure. but the entire food industry, with the possible exception of the raw produce sector, wants to load me with approximately one carton of morton’s per serving.
while i’m complaining — what is it with restaurant serving sizes? if packaged foods people assume we are all waifs who can subsist on 3 doritos per day, dining establishments seem to assume we are all football players coming in to restore calories after a big game. i want to see half-servings at half the price. and hold the salt. STAT.
February 7, 2010 at 8:18 pm
andrew
I would like 16 oz. instead of 20 oz. soda bottles.
February 7, 2010 at 8:30 pm
silbey
Very nice. I must say, though, I’m not a big fan of endings such as “so, too, may the American future be.” (I’m allowed to say that and not be a twit because I do it all the time.) Whenever something I write doesn’t sit a day or two before submission, I find those statements, and then a little philosopher plops down on my shoulder and says, “‘May’?! ‘May’?! ‘The future ‘may’ involve such and such’?! You need a Ph.D. to know that?” That little quibble aside, great stuff. I’ll be using it in class.
Jeez, I come in here expecting to read about portion sizes and suddenly my prose is being mocked. Looking at it, that last sentence does have a bit of a whiff of “as for the future, it could be yes or it could be no.”
February 7, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Vance
Raised on classical music, a field in which half a dozen of the greatest geniuses in the history of Western art couldn’t come up with more than one ending between them, I didn’t begrudge you a formulaic signoff. The ultimate revelation, though — that the man urging us to consider current events in the light of Historical Episode X is himself (surprise!) the author of a recent book on X — did raise a smile.
Plus, the portions were so small!
February 7, 2010 at 11:08 pm
nick
As sad as I am to see the American populace so uncaring and ignorant of the facts of food, I’m glad these deceptive marketing tactics are being brought to life.
And a calorie is not a calorie, unless you’re a bomb calorimeter. If you don’t believe me, try eating a 2000 calorie diet of pure sugar. A calorie is, by definition, the amount of energy held in a substance. When it explodes, in a bomb calorimeter, all that energy is released at once, and that is what we’re told we’re ingesting. In organic chemistry, however, a calorie of protein takes much energy to break down when compared to a sugar. A 2000 calorie diet of protein wouldn’t be great for you, but probably less harmful than the pure sugar diet. As always, a balance is key.
Eat real food, not too much, and above all exercise. Real food involves stuff you can pronounce, the fewer the ingredients the better, generally. Exercise can be as simple as a ten minute walk, if you do it enough. If you have that hard a problem getting the time for walking, park at the back of parking lots and walk all the way up to the store.
February 7, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Farah
Do you know this book?
The 9-Inch ‘Diet’: Exposing the Big Conspiracy in America
~ Alex BOGUSKY (Author), Chuck Porter (Author)
After we both read it we sorted through the cupboard and got rid of the larger plates. No change in the actual food we eat, but his weight is down and mine has stabilised.
February 10, 2010 at 6:45 pm
herbert browne
My favorite “whaaa-a-a-a-t?” of the fine print was the reference portion of ice cream- 1/2 cup- which is about the heaping soupspoons-worth that I remove at the beginning of “dishing up” in order to, um, test the contents for the proper temperature. WHO Eats a 1/2C of ice cream at a time? ^..^