Regulatory capture. The 5 companies that make and distribute all American food want to be able to control how the nutritional content appears to people. So they can better manipulate them into eating more, or less healthy products. It’s intentionally done to rob consumers of agency.
These cashews are a great example. People don’t want to eat 1,000 calories in a sitting. So the company displays the nutritional information in such a way that it looks like a “serving” is only 100 calories. They do this when the salt or fat content is very high as well.
The most egregious example is that they used to do this with a single candy bar too, but a few years ago the regulatory body finally told them they couldn’t do that anymore. So now the two-hand sized Snickers in a single wrapper is split into “two bars”. The big-ass coke in a single bottle still gets to pretend it’s 2.5 servings though.
The big-ass coke in a single bottle still gets to pretend it’s 2.5 servings though.
The really funny thing is that back in the day it was even worse. They had ads claiming a 12oz Coke bottle was 3 “large” servings, and a lady serving little whiskey glasses of it to her friends.
Regulatory capture. The 5 companies that make and distribute all American food want to be able to control how the nutritional content appears to people. So they can better manipulate them into eating more, or less healthy products. It’s intentionally done to rob consumers of agency.
These cashews are a great example. People don’t want to eat 1,000 calories in a sitting. So the company displays the nutritional information in such a way that it looks like a “serving” is only 100 calories. They do this when the salt or fat content is very high as well.
The most egregious example is that they used to do this with a single candy bar too, but a few years ago the regulatory body finally told them they couldn’t do that anymore. So now the two-hand sized Snickers in a single wrapper is split into “two bars”. The big-ass coke in a single bottle still gets to pretend it’s 2.5 servings though.
The really funny thing is that back in the day it was even worse. They had ads claiming a 12oz Coke bottle was 3 “large” servings, and a lady serving little whiskey glasses of it to her friends.