A Day in the Life tells us with pictures why you need to read the weight of the ingredients per serving.
President - How will we ever reduce the calories by half?! It can’t be done! It just can’t be done!
VP - Why don’t they just put half as much powder in each pouch?
President - That’s just crazy enough to work!
If you buy it, then it works. It’s a bit like how ink jet printer makers started giving us half of the ink for the same price. Did you notice that?
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Miss Cellania | 26-Dec-06 at 4:53 pm | Permalink
I recall when a pouch of muffin mix would make a dozen muffins. Then one pouch would make “6 jumbo muffins” or 9 small muffins. Now a pouch makes 6 small muffins. Same size pounch, same price.
Mark Dowling | 27-Dec-06 at 8:12 am | Permalink
Pringles do the same thing - about 180g in the standard box and 140g in the low fat.
thickslab | 27-Dec-06 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
If only the guy had bothered to read the label. He’s an idiot. The ingredients list for the two packages is different, and the difference is SUGAR. It’s not half the amount of the same powder. It’s different powder.
Saskboy | 31-Dec-06 at 2:23 pm | Permalink
Miss C, that sounds just like inkjet cartridges, they give you half the ink and charge just as much as before. That’s why I look into getting colour laser printers instead, but am holding off for another year I think.
Mark, thanks for the tip.
I don’t understand you Thickslab, isn’t that what he did - read the label?
There are clearly 13g in one pouch, and 28g in the non-light pouch. The powder is different too, but you’re getting less than half as much for something that still contains as much fat and more salt!
thickslab | 31-Dec-06 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Um - let me explain it to you slowly.
Aspartame is several thousand times sweeter than sugar. That means that one can achieve the same sweetness with mere milligrams of aspartame that one would get with grams of sugar. (Note that the Aspartame you get in sweetener packets is mostly filler, usually corn starch, to give it an appearance that looks somewhat like sugar.)
Imagine PC manafacturing the same base mix of cocoa powder, milk ingredients, and a few other things and putting them in two separate packets. Then add aspartame plus 20 miligrams of sodium to one and powdered cane sugar in the other. The result will be one packet that’s “light” and one packet that’s not “light”. Both will have the same flavour, if one leaves aside that there are some taste differences between aspartame and sugar.
You’re not getting “less than half as much” in any meaningful way. Thing of the packets as being sold by flavour and not by weight. The “light” packet will not make hot chocolate that is watered down; any taste difference will be due to the difference between aspartame and sugar. That’s it.
This guy is implying that the “light” hot chocolate is somehow watered down. It’s not.
Understand now?
thickslab | 31-Dec-06 at 2:38 pm | Permalink
And by the way, the US recommended daily allowance for sodium is 2400 milligrams. The 20 milligram difference between the two packets represents 0.83% of one’s recommended daily allowance. It’s insignificant in terms of what one would regularly consume in one’s daily meals.
Saskboy | 31-Dec-06 at 2:48 pm | Permalink
“Thing of the packets as being sold by flavour and not by weight. The “light” packet will not make hot chocolate that is watered down; any taste difference will be due to the difference between aspartame and sugar. That’s it.
This guy is implying that the “light” hot chocolate is somehow watered down. It’s not.”
People will buy on perception not reality in other words. I know what you’re saying I just don’t agree that PC isn’t being dishonest in some way.
thickslab | 31-Dec-06 at 2:59 pm | Permalink
Explain to me how they are being dishonest? If a packet gives the same flavour with half the calories, how is that dishonest?
Saskboy | 03-Jan-07 at 11:30 am | Permalink
Thickslab, admittedly, it’s more of a “truthiness” gut feeling I have that PC is ripping people off by putting significantly less powder in. In a taste test, I’m fairly certain that the user would be able to determine the “light” version due to the dilution.
Saskboy | 23-Jan-08 at 11:07 am | Permalink
Someone anonymous left a comment about Thickslab, but it was filtered by my spamfilter.