Quote:
Originally Posted by PAhippo
All the pkgs of various kinds that tell you how many servings they contain: who decides what a serving is and what do they base it on?
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The FDA has detailed guidelines on serving sizes to be referenced on nutrition labels. The problem is that they were formulated in the 1970s when the whole concept of food labeling was new, and before we all got "Super Sized."
And the problem today is that many of the suggested serving sizes are unrealistic, and don't reflect how consumers actually use the product. Many consumer advocates have been working to get serving size references updated, but it's been a drawn-out campaign. And food companies aren't crazy about the idea.
One example, a can of soup. When the standards were created, they settled on one cup as the standard portion, and a can contained two portions. That made some sense in the days when Campbell Condensed Chicken Noodle required a can of water to prepare, while Condensed Tomato required a can of milk. So in both cases the finished soup from one can was two portions of two cups each. Today, however, many of their soups are ready to eat, one serving per can. But they still get labeled for two servings. This can be deceptive, because the salt content for example, might seem a reasonable percentage of a daily allowance at a glance, but very high when doubled to account for contents of the whole bowl.
In this example consumers would be well served to change the serving size, but the soup company would prefer keeping the lower numbers.
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