Somewhere out there in this world, there is a team of people who are paid to think about things like fat, calories, RDAs, riboflavinoids, and the like. Based on their extensive backgrounds in human physiology, they make recommendations on how much we should eat, on average, at any given meal. If you look at any food-type product sold in our grocery stores, you will find this information on every package. They list what a typical serving size should be. It doesn't matter if it is a bag of Funyons, a canister of Cheesy Chews, a box of Lucky Charms, or even a can of soda. I would guess that the people who do this type of work for a living are only about the size of a full-grown Smurf with the metabolism of a sloth, because the listed serving sizes are usually miniscule. A typical can of soda is listed as containing six servings, a canister of Pringles quotes a serving size of 2.5 crisps, and a typical box of breakfast cereal should apparently last for a full year. I wrote a blog about an aspect of this a little while back (see Oh Nuts!).However, there is apparently a disconnect between these folks and the different species who work in the next office and make the same serving size recommendations, but for fast food restaurants. A typical meal is served with 5 lbs of hamburger meat, a bushel basket of french fries, and a gallon of soda. Perhaps this group consists of ogres or perhaps republicans. Who can say? I am surprised that apparently the ogres and Smurfs have not even met to exchange ideas and theories on what they base their ideas on. Wouldn't you think that this would be a sensible thing to do to provide some consistency? Well, on second thought, maybe this isn't a good idea. I can foresee that an ogre would believe a serving size of 10 Smurfs would make a good snack.
