PASSIONATE RATIONS

I read labels. My sweet tooth is too voracious not to (as are my fat tooth, savory tooth, and salt tooth). If I didn’t check calorie content now and again, I’d be 685 pounds.

Unfortunately, one sometimes needs a math degree to make the conversions necessary to figure out just how many of my little friend Cal I’m taking in.

Microwave popcorn is one of the biggest perpetrators of these marketing machinations (It is the marketers, I am convinced, who wave their magic marketing wand over the labels to make things seem better for you than they really are, or at least pretty up the bad stuff).

My little box o’ Orville Redenbacher first notes that a serving size is 2 Tablespoons of unpopped corn. What good does this do me? I’m not going to eat the darn kernels! And if I opened the bag to see just how many of those little babies there were inside, it would ruin the entire business.

So, I move on.

The label next states that 2 Tablespoons of unpopped corn “makes about 5 cups popped.” Well, now we’re getting somewhere!

Reading further, I next note that there are about 2.5 servings per bag. OK. Now the math begins. That would be 12.5 cups popped. (Whew, maybe I am smarter than a fifth grader).

But then the label sends us right back to the freakin’ kernels. The box notes that there are 120 calories in 2 Tablespoons of the unpopped corn. Once again, I wonder: who the hell is going to eat the kernels?

Ah, but behold! Right next to that number, it informs me that there are a mere 20 calories in 1 cup of popped corn. WTF? Do they think we’ll be impressed because the popped corn is obviously so much healthier than the kernels that I would never eat in the first place (or couldn’t if I tried unless I wanted to swallow them whole like horse pills)?

By this time I’m really annoyed. For the second time I have to take out the calculator. Let’s see: 12.5 cups of popped corn per bag times 20 calories per cup of popped corn.

That’s 250 calories per bag.

Would it really have been so hard for Orville just to come right out and confess this? Right there on the box? “Yes, folks, it’s 250 calories per bag and I’m telling you this because I know you’re going to sit there and eat the entire bag yourself, not precisely divide it into 2.5 servings.”

Get real people. I want to see realistic amounts on those labels. Don’t make me get a degree before I can eat your product.

At least one source of info appreciates the consumer’s dilemma on this issue. If you’re like I am and don’t precisely measure out ingredients before you eat them and just want to know what the hell those 63 almonds you downed with your Corona are going to cost you, go to www.nutritiondata.com. They list an enormous amount of different foodstuffs and you can select from a wide variety of serving size options, many of which are going to make a hell of a lot more sense in context (though, for some reason, the popcorn is still only listed in portions of 1 ounce or 100 grams as opposed to the 1.6 and 2.9 ounce bags they are usually packaged in. Sigh. I will have to investigate this mystery further).

In the meantime, go forth and count.