Serving Sizes

You know what is really annoying? When you look at the back of a package of food and it says, 10 grams of fat. You think, "oh great, this is not that bad," until you look at the number of servings supposedly in the package. In my experience I have to multiply by 3. Any mammal larger than a a Yorkshire Terrier's left paw is going to have to eat more than two or three servings to be at least halfway satiated.

Did you know that if a "serving" has 0.5 grams of trans-fat or less, they can claim it is trans-fat free? This is also true for the other fats. So if you eat 10 servings of potato chips (something very easy to do while watching TV), you may have ingested up to 5 grams of trans-fat.

Is this just corporations attempting to fool consumers into thinking their food is healthier than it really is? Or is this some predefined size required by the food pyramid? I don't know, but it really annoys me because it is misleading and important information is harder to see. I mean, come on... When you buy a candy bar and it says "servings: 28" you begin to think there is some chicanery going on.

An interesting table has been compiled that lists some other tricks that manufacturers are allowed to do.