https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Gulp
Even bigger sizes arrived in the 1980s:
Called Big Gulp because it was initially the largest such drink available at any retailer, 7-Eleven eventually introduced larger sizes. In 1986, they introduced the 44-US-fluid-ounce (1,300 ml) Super Big Gulp, followed by the 64-US-fluid-ounce (1,900 ml) Double Gulp in 1989 (later reduced to 50-US-fluid-ounce (1,500 ml))...
"Super Size" was a 90's thing as well, if I recall. It was basically an arms race of which company could provide the most ridiculously large portions of a cheap product like soda or fries.
Then the PR swung in the 00's due to the obesity epidemic and such stuff was silently rolled back. Likely for both PR and cost reasons. The 32oz drink stuck around though pretty much everywhere.
I only moved to the US ~10 yrs ago and quite unfamiliar with US in 80s/90s
It's an easy thing to promote more of to divert attention while reducing something else that actually costs money to make.
Or why portions of fries go up when burgers go down in size. Cheapest food item.
While I've no doubts shrinkflation explains a great deal of this, it would be interesting if increased mandatory food content reporting on packaging had even a small effect on reducing the calorie content of confectionery over time, as consumers could more easily compare etc and market responded with products in portion sizes to better fit preferences.
You can even see in the article photo, the more recent modern Mars bar has the calorific content printed on the front, in addition to the big label all UK food has on the rear. The 1991 example does not.
Except Blue Bell, who use a bright banner on their packaging to call out "Still 1/2 Gal!".
https://www.nytimes.com/1958/03/26/archives/u-s-issues-an-ic...
The term "ice cream" is pretty well regulated in the US. Really shows where our priorities are as Americans.
Most natural food products are regulated in the US [0]. Ice cream is not unique in this regard, nor is the standard is particularly onerous compared to others. It easily fits on single page [1].
0: https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards
1: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/IceCreamI...
It is interesting to me though that we make such a big point to regulate even things like "ice cream" and "potato chip" with labeling regulations but then so much else of our food industry seems to be pretty open. There aren't requirements of what a "chocolate chip cookie" is, for instance.
Not that I'm arguing for repealing the regulations we have currently, I do like to know the "ice cream" I'm buying meets these minimum standards.
And if they're making a product like that, where else would you prefer for that to be put? In between the porkchops and the steaks? Maybe between the crackers and the chips?
I don't quite get where you're going with this other than to suggest they shouldn't even be allowed to make such a thing at all and sell it in stores.
Particularly when its something like Breyer's light - its literally sold next to the Ice cream equivalent from Breyers and is designed to be ice cream in all but density requirements. Most people would call it ice cream and never know its designed to trick them into accepting something that is lesser quality for the same price.
As to where I'm going with it - well I'm just pointing out another form of the stupid shit. I can't wait to see how you flip out when I point out all the ways that they try to trick people into believing they are buying meat.
Maybe people sometimes do want the stuff loaded with fudge and candy bars and cake crumbles and whipped to nearly the consistency of whipped cream? Maybe sometimes people don't mind the tradeoff of it being whipped more so it still satisfies similar cravings and desires while being less calories per bite?
I don't exactly see why its "the stupid shit" and makes people less human to concoct such things. I say let them have their fun, just make sure its actually labeled if things are "ice cream" or not, as I usually prefer the basic "ice cream". Once again, should these products just not be allowed to be sold at all? What changes to their labeling do you think are needed? Are they not allowed to actually show the product at all on the label or something?
And yeah, it makes sense to stick the Breyers products next to the Breyers products. Once again where else would they put it? Wouldn't it be a bit more of PITA if the Breyers products were just kind of randomly strewn all over the place? You're seeing such negativity and bringing so much hatred for what seems to be like pretty obvious placement decisions. Ice cream like things are all around each other, similar brand products are grouped together. Are you also upset that sorbets are usually right next to the ice cream?
It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream, because they are sold in a way to intentionally make them easy to mistake for ice cream with the goal of blurring the lines reducing product cost without people noticing they are getting an inferior substitute. It's similar to (but distinct from) lowering the amount of goods in a box without reducing the size of the box (shrinkflation), with a similar goal.
> Maybe people sometimes do want the stuff loaded with fudge and candy bars and cake crumbles and whipped to nearly the consistency of whipped cream?
You're really stuck on this - I specifically pointed out Breyers light vanilla, which is not this at all. In fact, nearly everyone served this would just call it ice cream, and evidenced in this very thread where someone stated "theres so much air whipped into ice cream these days". That's the point.
> And yeah, it makes sense to stick the Breyers products next to the Breyers products.
Nabisco cracker products are in a whole different aisle than Nabisco cookie products. More relevantly, Nabisco saltines are with the other brand saltines, not on the same shelf as cheeze-its. You see Kraft mayo in the mayo section, and kraft mustard in the mustard section of the condiments aisle. I think its reasonable to put Breyers ice cream in an ice cream section and Breyer's light in a frozen-desert section of the freezer aisle, and not at all obvious why they aren't.
> I don't exactly see why its "the stupid shit" and makes people less human to concoct such things
The people who concoct them are fine. The ones who are less than human are the ones who use tricks to fool people into thinking they are ice cream. I mean even the name in the example "Breyers Light" - most things that are "light" are the same product with less sugar or fat or salt not a wholly different thing (e.g. Bud light is still beer (cue jokes from the beer snobs)) - are another trick to lead to confusion because its no longer ice cream.
I'm not the one calling people non-human and using terms like "the stupid shit" and assuming conspiracies that can easily be described with logically sorting like items. I'm just really trying to understand the mind of someone so angry about people enjoying different kinds of deserts and so the makers of those desires are now inhuman for sticking their frozen dairy products in the frozen dairy section.
> I think its reasonable to put Breyers ice cream in an ice cream section and Breyer's light in a frozen-desert section of the freezer aisle
Wouldn't that be immediately next to and surrounding the "ice cream" subsection? Like maybe novelties, frozen dairy deserts, ice cream, sorbets, that sound reasonable? Wouldn't you then logically put the brands like Breyers that make both kinds of products at the edge of the "ice cream" and the "frozen dairy desert" section? Isn't having them be the border of both sections then still the same end result you're dehumanizing people over? Should the government be required to have these products separated by 15 feet and have big flashing warning lights announcing the separation of those sections? How much separation do you require to meet your standards?
Are their frozen dairy deserts really the same level is dissimilar as ketchup is to mustard? Or are they essentially just like different "flavors" of the same base concept? Personally I (and I imagine many other people) could just swap a "real ice cream" for a "frozen dairy desert" and probably not care too much, but if I put mustard in something calling for ketchup or vice-versa it's definitely not going to end up the same!
This is a fun statement. It's a complete reversal of the opinion you've had most of this thread. You're just arguing semantics and don't care that ice cream is different. My point is always, and has always been that the frozen dair deserts that aren't ice cream are a way of selling less product (lower density = less actual milk, sugar, etc) at the same price, in a way that invokes the previous status quo.
As for sorting: There is no ontological reason some things are sorted by brand and some things are sorted by type. It's purely marketing saying "we'll give you a slightly better deal if you keep our brand together in one big section rather than sorting on types". It's branding deals with the supermarkets - thats the only logic to it.
And btw - i never called for any government regulation of anything, even the name ice cream. I never called for flashing lights. I just said it makes sense to sort things that are different categories by category instead of brand.
As for putting the same brand together, a lot of people like to shop by looking at the brand. Take your earlier example of crackers. There's a ton of varieties of Cheez-its and "cheese-flavored crackers". Should they break up all the different flavors of Cheez-its and have them all over the aisle, or would it kind of make sense to group all the different flavors and varieties of Cheez-its together so people shopping for Cheez-its can see the different flavors of Cheez-its? Seems like a pretty logical way to do things to me.
Going back to ice cream, should they also have a section for only vanilla, only chocolate, only strawberry, only neapolitan, only mint chocolate chip, and have all the brands placed in those groups? Whenever a company makes a new flavor, we have to shift all these groups around to make a space for that new flavor even if they're the only entrant for that flavor. One has to hunt for the spot where Moo-llennium Crunch fits in Might as well have the brands grouped together. I'd rather see all the varieties of Blue Bell in one place as it makes it easier to find the specific items.
I never said this, i never implied this. I never even mentioned a preference for one over the other. The only things i suggested were lesser were the marketing creatures who choose to give up their humanity to lie and scam for a living instead of doing honest work and creating value.
You seem very upset that my point is this "frozen dairy desert" phenomenon trying to replace ice cream is a phenomenon like shrinkflation. They have convinced you that its just ice cream (per your words) and somehow are irrationally upset that I'm calling out that its less ingredients and product for the same price that.
Again I'm not calling for any changes, all my examples are just how the marketing things are designed to get people to not notice that they are getting less for the same price. I don't particularly care how the grocery store is arranged, just that the choice to put some things by brand and some things by type is not explainable other than by marketing/branding.
(and btw, grocery stores rearrange shelves for new products all the freaking time, your argument fails on the face of it - marketing departments come to stores and say "we want to buy a section of shelf space just for our brand", which is the real reason some things are organized by brand and others by type. You're also failing to think in 2 dimensions, because you'll often see columns of type, and rows of brand.. so all the canned stewed tomatoes are a column, then the canned diced tomatoes, then tomato paste, etc).
Ideally, these would be closely aligned, but given that the former is a set of mutually exclusive category definitions bounded by precise quantitative variables, and the latter are overlapping clines that people make varied subjective judgments about, it's impossible to have perfect alignment, and edge cases like the ones you're discussing here will naturally proliferate.
You're calling people subhuman because of the way grocery stores are arranged. That seems like the opposite of not caring.
> You seem very upset that my point is this "frozen dairy desert" phenomenon trying to replace ice cream is a phenomenon like shrinkflation. They have convinced you that its just ice cream (per your words) and somehow are irrationally upset that I'm calling out that its less ingredients and product for the same price that.
Or, in an alternative light, its the market reacting to customer preferences.
> They have convinced you that its just ice cream (per your words)
I have never said it is "just ice cream", I just said I and many other people see them as pretty similar products and can often swap them out without too much concern. I still like that there are government rules about what is legally "ice cream" so its more obvious what one is buying, but that doesn't mean I don't see the two kinds of products pretty similar. Almost always, soft serve is also not legally "ice cream", but in the end I sometimes tell the kids "if you eat more of the veggies you can get some ice cream" after and maybe that'll be a bit of soft serve. Would you expect the kids are going to complain to me about how I promised "ice cream" and instead they got soft serve? No, because generally speaking to most people in most situations they're fairly fungible. They're the same basic concept. Something sweet, creamy, kind of soft, and frozen.
Once again, if a friend offers me a bowl of it, its not exactly the end of the world. Lots of people like the highly whipped varieties because its whipped more and so is softer, less calories for the same portion size (the size of what you eat and how its arranged is often also related to satiety) and what not. I've been known to sometimes (not most of the time, not reversing my stance that I usually prefer vanilla ice cream) buy stuff like Dryers Slow Churned because its so light and airy when I was looking for something less heavy than regular ice cream. And sometimes I really like soft serve, despite that also not legally being ice cream. It wouldn't be the same product if it had to meet the government definition of "ice cream", it would probably be worse if it had to.
And for a consumer choosing a "frozen dairy desert" because its got a ton of cookies mixed in it, one can hardly claim its because they're being duped that its not "real ice cream", they want the variety with too many cookies or cake chunks or candybars or whatever to legally be called ice cream. The whole point of the product is to be loaded with non ice cream things while kind of being the same style of desert.
> I'm calling out that its less ingredients and product for the same price
And a thin crust pizza is technically less pizza for often the same price as the traditional crust. Shrinkflation! Those greedy subhuman people selling thin crust pizza, how terrible they are. Or maybe people like thin crust too. But hey, there aren't really the same government standards of "what is legally a pizza" as "what is legally ice cream", so its seen as a non-issue.
I think he's objecting to you presumptively calling it a "slimy marketing tactic" to offer a product that some people clearly do enjoy and are willing to pay for, but which doesn't strictly conform to the legal definition of a specific product category, and which therefore must be labelled as something else.
> It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream,
Because they are within the "ice cream" category in the general vernacular sense: people are buying these products because they do satisfy their taste for ice cream. They're labelled differently because the labeling regulations are applying hard-and-fast boundaries to fuzzy-edged categories.
If you want to have clear, objective rules, you need to set hard boundaries, but that always entails that there will be edge cases that people will debate about, but which will need to be settled on one side of the boundary or the other.
If you're going to set technical, quantitative standards for what can be called "ice cream", some products that people regard as ice cream, and consume accordingly, will always end up falling outside that definition.
I don't think you can discern priorities from actions unless those actions entail a manifest trade-off between mutually exclusive options, which doesn't seem to be the case here.
https://medium.com/@dapscience/the-encrapification-of-store-...
> I don't know what they put into pizza "dough" but it's not real flour.
Shelf life, reduced calories, ease of working with, etc, etc. Basically all those secondary goals you optimize for once it's a given that the pizza will pizza properly.
https://www.cooksinfo.com/flour-grades
excerpt:
"French bakers will use straight flour in their bread making; North Americans and British generally don’t.
"Straight flour is separated by sifting in other grades. The straight flour is passed along a roller over different sieves. Different grades fall through the appropriate sieve along the roller. In the percentages given below, the lower the percentage of straight flour that falls through a particular grading sieve, the more desirable the flour."
Some clever fellow decided to shave a nickel by padding their shredded parmesan with sawdust and now the other brands of parmesan have "No cellulose!" on the label as if that is a selling point. Which it is, now, alas.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/17/parmesa...
In the best case, you might have had chalk added to whiten your bread. In worse cases, alum..
That conspiracy doesn't make sense given that flour is probably the cheapest ingredient in a pizza besides water. You'd have a hard time finding something cheaper, not to mention hiding it (either from the ingredients list, or from your conspirators)
Also, based on the statement, you're buying shit pizza from trash restaurants/frozen garbage. That's why the crust is bad. Pizza is one of the cheapest things you can make, that's why when I worked in restaurants I always said if you can't make money selling pizza you need to get out of the industry.
Everything has been spreadsheeted to death.