Seriously, how is anyone dumb enough to be fat?

[Aractus]

Like I said, I think they do it to artificially deflate the perceived calorie count in the bottle. Why else would Vitamin Water give the calories only by SERVING SIZE, but create a whole column for giving the amount of vitamins for the whole BOTTLE? What's the deal, VW? Why are you playing games?

Yes, and I can't understand the reasoning behind it, especially as it's not the standard practise here.

This is why I have a smidgen of respect for Coke when they put up front the calorie count of their whole bottles. But just a smidgen. Coke also seems to be the sole exception in giving Nutrition Information for their whole, single serving containers: 8oz and 12oz cans, 16oz and 20 oz bottles, but I'm not sure about 1L bottles. I still think the information should be given for whole 2L bottles, though.

(....)

I know there are people who drink a whole 2L of Coke in a day, sometimes multiples in a day. And for some, it's easier to estimate calories by percent of a whole than by multiples of a serving size. (i.e. it's easier for them to determine what half of 1800 calories is than to multiply 225 calories per serving by 4 servings to get the same number)

Drinking 2L of coke in a day is not the same as drinking 2L as one serving. Most people drink it one glass at a time, not straight out of the bottle. But that said, I totally agree that the 20oz/600g bottle should display the serving size as 1 per container as it does in Australia; those bottles are specifically designed to be consumed straight from the container.

In principle, I would be okay with having a Nutrition Information box that included something like the 100g column (translated to something Americans could understand of course ) but I also wonder if that's going to create the same confusion as nutrition information by serving size - it's just a larger serving size.

(For blocks of cheese, they could do what they do for butter and put marks on the wrapper indicating where to cut the stick in order to get 2 tablespoons or whatever - only they could make the marks to indicate a serving size. Just a thought.)

Well there's no better time than present to go metric. Here's the UK's label:

Similar to ours it too has to the 100g column. The only thing that I would like to see changed in our Australian labels is the energy always displayed in both kJ (Kilojoules) and Cal (Calories) - it is very simple to convert kJ to Cal in your head, however it would be nice if all products had both. We use kJ as standard because it's metric, however I know I think in terms of Calories and not Kilojoules.

There's no problem with having serving sizes, they are often useful. The serving size for butter or margarine is typically stated as 10g, which is 2x tsp - anyone can measure out 2 teaspoons to make sure they're using the correct amount, if they want to. If the number is 15ml that's about 1x tbsp - anyone can measure a tablespoon! Or as you say, you can cut the butter up along the marked lines - for cheese it's not marked but you can still easily estimate it, or work it out if you want to (I seriously don't know anyone who doesn't know how big a tablespoon is!)