The US FDA (Food & Drug Administration) has very strict and specific rules laid down about what must legally appear on food and beverage labels for consumable products sold in the United States. The traditional Nutrition Facts label is quite familiar to everybody:
However, most people don’t really pay attention to a critical part of the label: The servings per package.
When you show per serving nutrition information on a food label, most people will look at the calorie and fat information and feel good about their purchase and consumption. It’s psychologically comforting to look at a number, say 223 calories, and think “This is what I’m eating. It’s not too bad.”. However, when the package has a strange number like “2.5 servings per package”, not many people are actually going to sit there and do the math of 223×2.5 to see what a full package contains. Besides, most of the servings sizes that manufacturers list are much smaller than a normal person would eat. The problem is even worse in packages that appear to be single-serving and yet still show multiple servings per package.
It’s very important to check the serving size on food and beverage labels. Make sure you realize fully what you’re ingesting when it comes to serving sizes and calories, fat, and sugar per serving.
