Holy cow, I wrote a book!
I was in the grocery store, and there was a sign advertising a new product.
Delight in a cup Your favorite XYZ Ice Cream Now in convenient single-serve cups.
I took a look at the cup. Seemed kind of big for a single serving. I picked one up to read the nutritional information.
Servings per container: 2
Sadly, I'm not surprised by this at all. At least they disclose the information, but such shenanigans are all too common.
Reading the nutrition labels is a must on every food I purchase. It often causes me to lose my craving for a particular item. For example, I may really be in the mood for some potato chips, but reading the labels usually changes my mind and I'll buy popcorn or apples instead.
BTW: I HATE the Bing search box. I would much rather have the search results open a new browser tab instead of me having to scroll through hundreds of results in this tiny non-resizable box.
The one that always makes me chuckle (rightly or wrongly so!) is the 500ml Coke bottle here in the UK. I've never considered it to be anything other than a "single serve", but the nutritional information on the side is displayed as 2x250ml servings.
I guess that makes the amount of sugar seem more palatable!
So why is that not a violation of some truth-in-advertising law?
It looks like a straightforward lie to me: advertising something as a thing and then denying that it is in fact that thing.
Although I suppose that maybe there's no real reason why you couldn't call a 55-gallon drum of ice cream a "single serving". (Just don't write "servings per container: 1760" on it).
Share it!
I believe that "serving size" is a standard unit that the FDA uses depending on the type of food.
So when the cup says "single serving" but the nutritional facts say "2", basically you're seeing that the single serving is actually twice the recommended healthy amount of the food.
It's not so much false advertising, so much as an inconvenient reminder that most of us Americans eat way, way, way too much....
This site explains it all quite well:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/LabelingNutrition/ConsumerInformation/UCM078889.htm
Yeah, the new Bing search box is awful! Besides being too small, its scrollbar is hidden behind the scrollbar of the main web page (At least on my computer when viewed in IE8). The problem seems specific to Raymond's blog though. The one on Michael Kaplan's blog is not so close to the right edge of the page and doesn't go offscreen.
+1 on the Bing search box being awful.
"the single serving is actually twice the recommended healthy amount"
Interesting bit of editorializing here.
If you choose to eat two apples (ie, two servings), it would be hard to argue that the "extra" apple is magically less healthy.
I fail to see the connection between the serving size of ice cream and the bing search box.
dave: It's not the ice cream maker's fault that the store decided to advertise it as "single serving."
In any case, isn't a false advertising lawsuit a little overkill for something so petty? No wonder there are so many lawyers.
Brian: off-topic Bing rant is the new off-topic Vista rant!
@njkayaker: Well, yes, true, when it comes to stuff that's actually good for you, you're right. In this present case of ice cream, however, it's debatable about how healthy it is in the first place, so double the amount is likely going to be more unhealthy.
@Brian
The Bing search button overflows its container and spills offscreen.
This is a single-serving container of Bing with at least two servings in it.
The FDA has noticed this and may act:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06portion.html
One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That
In the NY Times, Feb 5 of this year.
To get some perspective for the Bing-complainers: For me (with Opera), the Box stays disabled with “Loading...” displayed. Good thing Bing and that other search engine support site:domain.com/directory/ syntax.