I remember getting angry a few years back when Dannon switched its yogurt containers from 8 oz to 6 oz without dropping the price. I wrote to them and they claimed that they were doing it because people “preferred” the six-ounce size, but for me as a calorie counter, carb counter and calcium watcher, it just threw everything off – and left me getting less calcium in my diet – while costing me more per ounce. I’ve been boycotting them ever since, but of course other manufacturers are up to the same tricks.
Have you noticed the incredible shrinking packaging in the stores? Are your tried and true family recipes thrown off by the cans of tuna shrinking from six ounces to five? Or cans of vegetables shrinking ounce by ounce?
Do you weigh and measure what you eat? Or do you depend on your memorized values from years of using the same food items? Have you ever had a hypo from injecting too much insulin due to a shrunken serving size?
Do you care that the good old standard “pound of coffee” ranges down to 13.5 ounces, or even 11 ounces these days!?!!
I’m trying to use only natural, bulk, unprocessed foods as much as possible (a kind of blending of the Paleo and Bernstein programs), but I was still fooled the other day when I bought what USED to be a pound bag of raw, shelled walnuts and discovered that the bag only contained 14 ounces.
What do you think of these “new improved” microwave bags for frozen vegetables that contain twelve ounces instead of sixteen – and cost more, not less?!? I can see cutting the size of high-calorie treats, but do we really need to have our family’s frozen broccoli or canned tomatoes rationed for us by the food industry?
Well, we had standard sizes for basic commodities for decades: a pound can of coffee, a five or ten pound bag of potatoes, a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a #10 can of veggies – how many thousands of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ recipes are based on the good old #10 can of tomatoes or corn or red beans?
I had no idea they were shrinking the tuna into 5-oz cans.
I guess between the days of the roaming snake-oil salesmen and the days of the New Chislers we went through a brief, shining moment of having standards.
Sigh.
What is the USDA for, exactly? Giving fat subsidies to mega-corp agribusinesses? Or making sure that these self-same agribusinesses are not ripping off granny for 20% of the beans she expects to be in her can?
I guess I’ll have to start bringing the magnifying glass with me to the grocery, as my bifocals are no longer up to the task of keeping an eye on these charlatans in fancy suits!
Well you have to buy two cans and invite four friends so you have five servings.
Or you can buy one can and give it to the dog, but that would be WAY too much salt for the dog.
Maybe we should just make home-made soup with veggies from the garden and the farmers market and tell the giant agribusinesses to go suck an egg? Speaking of which, the eggs I used to get? The shells are getting so thin I think they must be starving the hens of calcium. I switched to some more-natural eggs from a regional, organic supplier and they have “real” shells. Crazy.
Sounds llike one of those dreaded word problems from high school math. I’m all for not supporting agribusiness & supporting local producers. Supermarket eggs bare no resemblance to fresh eggs. I’ve been spoiled by being able to get fresh eggs from happy, free range, well cared for local chickens. Sssshhhh, don’t give them any ideas about 10 egg cartons.
Oh yes, I’ve noticed the shrinking. Our major supermarket chain boasts they are keeping their prices the same, but of course with shrinkage they are not. It is not just food, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid and on and on. I buy fresh vegetables as much as possible, but of course with the floods, fires and droughts we have had this summer vegetables are scarce and expensive, alas, justifiably.
