It's also a very sneaky way for manufacturers to make their products look lower in fat, calories, etc. than is realistic. Many people don't notice the number servings in a package, but they may look at the calories or whatever.

There IS, after all, REALLY 2 1/2 servings in a bag of popcorn....right?

NOT!

Deanna

My favorite is the single muffin that is 3 servings!

Just one more really simple thing the federal government has managed to screw up.

I was out of cornmeal, so disappointed, but didn't feel like going to the store in the rain. So I made biscuits.

The ham beans had cooked all day in the crockpot and smelled so good I had to sample them before the biscuits were done.

I think I ate about 7 servings and two biscuits! LOL

Nothing better on a cool rainy day!

Mmmm....sounds good.
I love a pot of soup or beans on rainy days.

And, yeah, that sounds like a healthy serving.
Certainly more realistic than the gov't version! LOL
If it were up to them, we'd all starve to death!

Deanna

Well, folks, those are the sizes they want us to go by for calories, too. Ugh... I am diabetic, and that is how they teach us to eat. Things like the size of a deck of cards for meat. The sizes of things are less than my little grandson eats ! Sure, one tsp. of jelly and a tsp. of butter ?? Now how can you have a tsp. of butter on a baked potato ? Wait ! We can only have half of a tiny potato....
That is how.

What on earth do the feds have to do with serving sizes? Serving sizes are determined by the company!

Except I think the feds did pass a rule that beverages that appear to have one serving, like a coke can, now need to be considered one serving on the nutrition label. Which makes sense.

By the way, I used frozen biscuits from the store. I made homemade biscuits this morning. I added another post on it.

A 'serving size' is determined by whomever hangs that label on a food product. And actually the feds have determined 'serving sizes' when setting up the food pyramid and they used several criteria. It is meant as a guide, however, and not a mandate and I think that is the way it should be. Does it realistically reflect the sizes people actually eat? Do pigs fly?

The skinny on this subject (dear to my heart) is that there are restrictions and rules set down by the federal and also state governments on labeling. There have been many complaints by consumers over the years, there have been many judegments and regulations written. But it has and always shall be playing a game of catch-up with manufacturers with profit maximums in mind and the consumer is told to remember the principle of caveat emptor.

I have a background in chemistry, agriculture and health. I read labels on every food product I buy and STILL find interpretting the label into nutritional common sense difficult. Manufacturers have lobbyists and think-tanks, and ad campaigns. Most want to stay legal, obviously, but they do it..........uhm.........creatively. Even and especially point-of-sale sites do the same thing. One of my local markets give the unit price, except when they have a food on sale. So, half the shelf is 'on sale' so that you can't determine what the price per unit is. LOL. There is also no standardisation where container sizes are concerned between brands. A calculator found it's way into my purse and lately I use it. The results are surprising....especially where quantity surcharge is concerned. Sometimes you pay a premium on buying the larger size. It's the store's way of using the cheaper by bulk mindset and taking advantage of it.

You can bet any time a food contains the current media foe, like transfat, the serving size is going to shrink to whatever it takes to stay under the latest federal label law trigger. Like margarine with the claim of 'no transfat'. Again, do pigs fly?