Talk:Serving size

Origins
I love how a normal bowl of cereal or ice cream is like 8 servings. Who came up with this thing?


 * I know. It's ridiculous, right? I was just looking it up myself. I always thought it didn't reflect reality, now i know that's a fact. The book "overcoming anorexia nervosa" talks about a portions system, where you have 15 a day, and gives examples, most of them are about 70-75 calories each. Personally I say that's a portion, and 15 plus separate protein in some meals makes up what I would consider a proper diet. Maybe I should write an article based on the section in the book.--90.213.175.101 (talk) 20:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Popcorn example
Yeah its ridiculous. Have you seen cooking spray? It is measured in 1/8th of a spray? How can you do an 1/8th of a spray? Servings in a can of cooking spray--196. Alton Brown said that companies try to take advantage of "rounding loopholes" which lets you round down 11 calories down to zero, but 12 calories gets rounded up to 20? Also, popcorn purposely obfuscates what a serving size is. First it says

Serving Size 2 Tbsp(35g) unpopped
 * (makes about 5 cups popped)
 * Servings per Carton: about 12.5

Amount per serving Calories 35 (1 cup popped) calories from fat 20

How can there be 12.5 servings per carton? Are there 5 full size bags and 1 mini-bag? Or are there therefore 3.125 servings per bag of 2 Tbsp unpopped (this is the case in fact) and now they tell you the calories(35), calories from fat(20), saturated fat(5%), cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates(1%) for 1 cup popped!!!! Note how they dont break down the carbs and saturated fat in grams, but rather as a percentage of a 1 popped cup serving! What am I supposed to do, cook a bag of popcorn that has 3.125 servings and measure out 2 Tbsp before I microwave it? Like pinch it into a corner of the bag without breaking the airtight seal? Or do I do what all americans do when they microwave a bag of popcorn. Only eat 1 cup and save the rest in the fridge for the next meal.

These facts are from "Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Korn five bags of 3.3 OZ(93.1g)"

I wish back in college when I got that 4am survey about how many cups of popped popcorn I eat, in a single serving, I should have taken it seriously, like the article makes it seem like. I'm just thankful for those 100-calorie bags, because you just eat the whole bag and you don't have to convert unpopped tablespoons into popped grams then back to joules or whatever. 76.4.134.154 (talk) 18:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Also the UPC on the popcorn is 27000 48396 as I guess there might be more than one type of kettle korn by orville redenbacher depending on your region of america.

I am obviously biased so i shouldn't edit the article, as I couldn't possibly be NPOV. Can someone maybe at least say that the whole defining of a serving size can sometimes be arbitrary and or confusing? 76.4.134.154 (talk) 18:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Why can't there be half a serving in the box? That just means that each packet isn't a whole serving or a whole number of servings. What's wrong with that? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (talk) 04:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

FDA Letter
The FDA wrote a letter to food manufacturers in March 2004 addressing the exact issues we all complain about. you can read it here. Basically: FDA says "things like individual cups of soup should be labeled 1 serving but food manufacturers aren't doing it because the rules let them" the conspiracy theorist in me wants to say food manufacturers are being misleading! :) --Brad R. (talk) 17:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is this article completely unsourced, and why is their no mention that the FDA is the one who sets serving size standards based on 'quantities commonly eaten' surveys taken in the 70's and 80's? The article makes it sound like companies are making up serving sizes to mislead people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.64.162 (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Inventor
Who was the inventor and why did she come up with something like that? Considering there is no standard. 1 serving of vegetable is not the same as 1 serving of vegetable - it's different for everything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.207.180.128 (talk) 14:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)