September 29th, 2006
While I was having an italian hoagie for lunch today, I noticed something on the label on the bottled iced tea that I bought. The bottle is a 16 fl oz. bottle, and the recommended serving size on the label was 2. The nutrition fact on the label was divided into two halves, with one for half bottle, and the other for the whole bottle.
It made me think why they would do that. Why would they sell a bottle that would serve 2 instead of 1? If it was determined that half of the bottle is sufficient, then wouldn’t the utility of drinking each gulp of the second half be negative? After I thought about it, I started to feel that the second half of the bottle made me too full (when drinking with the hoagie). It would be more optimized for me if the bottle were half the size, and the price be reduced. But of course, that probably wouldn’t be optimized for the manufacturers, which is probably why they don’t do it…
Maybe I’m just thinking too much… but hey, I’m going to grad school for a reason… :-p
October 5th, 2006 at 5:16 am
Well, yah, you’re always thinking too much. let me tell you the real reason *why* one bottle has 2 servings… (from a perspective of a woman anyway… :P)
They do that so that the *magic* number (i.e. calories) wouldn’t be scarily high! yah. sure, people can get the real number by simple multiplication, but sometimes seeing the number has a stronger effect on the mind.
Also…. again, it’s all about the numbers on the nutrition label… i think that if the serving contains less than 0.something something of something, then they can claim that it contains zero-this or zero-that.. (like… 0g of fat or something)…
So, you may ask, why stop at 2 servings/bottle then? why not have each sip be a serving? Well, i think the FDA has a regulation about how small a serving size of each type of food can be……
So….. yah, it’s not about them determining that “half of the bottle is sufficient” or anything… or at least… the volume may not be sufficient… but the calorie probably is.