Ask the nutritionist: whats happened to serving sizes?
You’re right, many food and drink labels are misleading. But, hopefully, change is in the air. “Consumers deserve to be able co see at a glance the amount of calories, fat or sugar in what they logically assume is a single-serving container,” says Michael E Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington, DC-based consumer group. So last December, the CSPI petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to update its labeling rules and make this happen. The group believes that oversized sodas, candy bars and other foods may well be feeding the obesity epidemic. Here’s a classic example: the 24-ounce bottle of Coke. The label says it contains three 100-calorie servings, but most people drink the whole bottle single-handedly and get all 300 calories in one sitting. And as you correctly point out, soda is hardly the only culprit. Small 2- or 3-ounce packages of pretzels, corn chips, cookies, candy, even some large store-bought salads carry
