Friday, March 12, 2004
1/3 of a pickle
Watching C-Span again. (Which really can be entertaining.) Today for my viewing pleasure Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is discussing our national obesity problems. Emphasis in this presentation is focused heavily on counting calories.
To assist in this emphasis is the strong encouragement from the FDA regarding food labeling guidelines. Apparently the FDA has just noticed that the serving sizes noted on food packaging are truly hilarious. The example show on the graphic presentation of the encouraged changes is a bottle of soda pop. One bottle of soft drink apparently equals 2.5 servings, therefore the 110 calories displayed for a serving is very misleading since the bottle contains 275 calories.
Serving sizes are voluntary for now. However, the threat of regulation was quite clear if food labeling does not begin to accurately reflect what a person will normally consume in the near future.
If you are bored and want some entertainment go read the serving sizes in your pantry. In my brief glance I discovered that although a single serving of dill pickle does not contain any calories the size allotted for a standard serving is one third of a pickle. Who eats a third of a pickle?.
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