People, usually without realising it, are eating more than their forebears did, and food manufacturers are being blamed for increasing product sizes and therefore urging people to eat more than they need, to the detriment of their health.
According to a recent article in The Guardian, in 1993 the average American-style muffin weighed 85g, while today it can be one and a half times heavier at 130g. Ready meals have also ballooned in size, the British newspaper said. Chicken pies have expanded by 49% and the average shepherd’s (minced red meat) pie has nearly doubled in size from 210g to 400g since 1993.
The newspaper didn’t report on any seafood ready meals but it is fairly safe to assume that they also increased in size during the same period.
However, it is unnecessary to increase seafood portion sizes, as eating fish can curb peoples’ appetites. Lean (white, non-oily) fish has a low energy density combined with high protein levels, says Anna Karin Lindroos from the Elsie Widdowson Laboratory in Cambridge in the UK. “Of the main protein foods, fish has the highest volume but contains the lowest number of calories.”
Trials have shown that eating fish stopped people feeling hungry sooner than other protein foods such as beef and chicken, she added. “It is also more satisfying than other high protein foods.”
Will power
Unfortunately, it seems people don’t have the will power to reduce their food intake when presented with more on their plates. According to the UN, nearly 30% of the world’s population is now either obese or overweight, and obesity levels today are more than three times what they were in 1980, when only 6% of men and 8% of women were classified as obese.
The country with the highest proportion of obese people, 13%, is the USA and it is no coincidence that portions served in catering outlets there are very much larger than in other Western countries.
Sedentary lifestyles are also blamed for the rise in obesity levels, but there is no escaping the fact that people eat far more today than they did even 20 years ago.
However, help is at hand from the very source that is being blamed for increasing portion sizes. In order not to raise product prices and risk declining sales, some food manufacturers are reducing pack sizes. Not that they are informing customers about this, neither are they reducing prices.
Food producers such as chocolate companies which have shrunk product sizes more than other food firms also said that they had reduced pack sizes because of government concern about healthier eating.
Again the recommended retail prices had remained what they were for the bigger bars and bags. In some cases retail prices had even increased for the smaller packs.
Shrinking pack sizes doesn’t just apply to food products in the current economic climate, of course, but to all sorts of household goods such as toiletries.
Reducing pack sizes in the seafood industry could have an additional beneficial effect in making fish appear more affordable if it prevented increases in price; fish and shellfish are often regarded as expensive foods. However, it is important not to make consumers feel cheated by doing so.
