Friday, August 15, 2008

Serving Size

Having posted earlier today, in part about the silly serving size of a Big Kahuna Giant, a few minutes ago, as I started to get hungry and think about the careful preparation of the second two “servings” of my Big Kahuna, I wandered into the kitchen to turn on the oven to pre-heat it to bake some frozen French fries (no oil, healthy, don’t argue with me).

I started looking at the nutrition labels of stuff.

I like Lay’s Stax. They are a better version of Pringles. Serving size according to the plastic container is 13 “crisps.” First, why aren’t they a chip? Well, I suppose that is actually truthful as I think they make a soup of the potatoes and form them into “crisps.” Anyway, 13 crisps, allowing for the broken ones, are about an inch thick. A serving?

OK, let’s go healthy. You ever buy one of those little “individual” cans of vegetables? I do. My spring peas, just examined, are TWO “approximate” servings, even though the can is labeled as individual. This is healthy stuff. The whole can is 8.5 ounces. I'm only supposed to eat approximately half of it?

Just so you know, I’m not a big guy. I’m not a big eater. Rick, Bill, Jay, Hedy, tell them.

Some years back when I was traveling a lot, I was on a Delta jet from Atlanta to Philly at just about sunset (at 30,000 feet). It was quite pretty. Anyway, I was bored. My laptop was out so I started writing about what I was seeing. (Before there were blogs, I used to "blog" Emails to friends from hotel rooms.) The sunset, the turkey sandwich that Delta used to serve on every flight before it got out of the turkey farm business (Didn’t know that did you! Delta didn’t used to be an airline. From the evidence, there were a couple of guys back in the way back when that had a bunch of turkey farms. They couldn’t sell all the birds, so they started an airline, Delta, so they could get rid of the excess birds by way of dry sandwiches. I think their last name was Biscotti.)

Ahem! So one of the things I was looking at on the flight was the empty water bottle from my complimentary “meal.” On the nutritional label it recited that it had no calories, no carbs, no saturated or other fats, cholesteral, sodium or protein. Serving size? “Approximately one bottle.”

(This downsizing of serving size actually makes sense for one product, though it isn’t food. Have you noticed that paper towels are being perforated at about 50 or 60% of what they used to be? For many jobs, makes for the perfect size.)

OK, to wrap this up, want to know how many fries you get in a serving? Three ounces, or “about 18 pieces.” Does that count the bits that constitute about 10% of what you shake out of the bag? I throw those away. My guess, I had about 5 ounces, pig that I am.

Finally, I am adding this after initially posting this. You get one, count it, one, Archway oatmeal raisin cookie in a serving. Right. I'm not going to look at the serving size of the milk I'm going to drink with my four servings of cookie.

5 comments:

Hedy said...

I did a little kitchen exploration here to find a similarly silly serving size - bingo - Pop Tarts. The standard box comes with four foiled-wrapped packages containing two tarts each. Suggested serving size? One tart. Or 'pastry' as they call it - which in my mind is a bit of a stretch, but anyhoo.

Why don't they package them individually if the suggested serving size is one? Hmmm? Everybody eats both tarts. Everybody. It's wrong NOT eating both. Especially the brown sugar cinnamon ones.

Dave said...

Hedy, I think it's OK to eat all the Pop Tarts you want. I'm pretty sure there's no real food in one, two,....

Gypsy at Heart said...

You know, it is becoming quite apparent to me Dave that besides having someone iron for you, you most definitely need a good cook. ;-)

Dave said...

Milena, Good Cooks are found at restaurants and my sister-in-law's house, unfortunately several hundred miles away.

I do actually know how to cook, but don't have the patience to exercise the nascent talent other than on an irregular basis.

Here's a great, great recipe for you:

Sufficient tomatoes for your guests. Don't make this unless the tomatoes are perfect globe, fully red, preferably locally grown.

Put a slice or two of proscutto on a plate.

Slice the tomato thick. A couple of slices per person.

Slice a Vidalia onion or two thinly and put a ring or two or three over the tomato slices.

Crumble some fresh mozzerella over the top.

Capers are good if you like them.

Drizzle your favorite vinegarette.

Best with some toasted garlic and butter rubbed on toasted French or Italian bread.

So, tell me, I need a cook? Yeah, I do, I'm too lazy to make the wonderful food.

Jim Donahue said...

I once bought a candy bar from Hallmark, with this nutritional information:

Serving size: Half a bar

Number of servings: About 2


You know, roughly.