Thursday
Feb052009
It's official - size does matter
Thursday, February 5, 2009 The government wants shops to start selling smaller packets of crisps and chocolate bars to tackle obesity. Full story HERE.
As long as consumers have a choice, I don't have a problem with the idea. If there's a market for smaller portions, fine. But if I want to eat a large packet of crisps - or a great big slab of milk chocolate - I expect to have that choice too.
Note: if you live in Beds, Herts or Bucks, I will be discussing the issue on BBC Three Counties Radio at 5.30 5.50 this evening.
Reader Comments (14)
"But if I want to eat a large packet of crisps - or a great big slab of milk chocolate - I expect to have that choice too".
You already know the answer to that Simon.
Buy two bars of chocolate. Buy two packets of crisps.
Every time I think that new stupidity lows have been plumbed, they come out with more guff......
This is the headline I would like to see:
The people want Parliament to start cutting down on MP's salaries in order to help tackle the financial crisis they have got us into..
They've been doing this by the back door for ages.
Crisp packets are getting emptier but not cheaper. It's inflation, but not as we know it.
They've also made digestive biscuits taste horrid by threatening regulation upon the food industry.(To do with fats, sugar and salt content in stuff) Prohibit things and we want them even more. Rising obesity correlates well with rising nannyism.
At what point does this nannying become out and out harrassment?
Crisp packets if anything are getting bigger, not smaller.
It would certainly be a good idea if they forced motorway service areas to offer standard size packets of crisps and 330ml cans of soft drinks instead of just the 55g "grab bags" and 500ml bottles.
I wonder how many millions the spin doctoring guru got for conjuring up the suggestion of making crisp packets and choc bars smaller.
You can bet your bottom dollar they would still charge the same price for the smaller size thus more money for their coffers.
"The Business4Life coalition led by the Advertising Assoc. has committed 200million to the Change4Life campaign".
These quangos seem to be popping up like mushrooms all over the place. Just how many of them are out there and where is the govt getting all this money to throw at them and for what purpose.
Are they really that concerned about our health when in these hard times their first priority should be jobs to enable people just to keep basic food on the table.
Looks like its the old reliable clandestime manouvering for votes under the brainwashing guise of concern for our wellbeing, that never fails.
Its about time the electorate demand a serious cut back on the amount of MP's salaries, better still a serious culling of them and their cohorts in the quangos like ASH and all the other so called health agencies.
And lets all see some accountability on the amount of employees they employ, the scale of wages and what purpose they really serve in these recessionary times
apart from driving us all mad with their rules and regulations.
Personally Gareth, I believe that this nannying has already become harrassment - it did that the day the smoking ban came into force!
Choice is what normal, everyday people both want and deserve and it should not be taken away on a whim by these idiots who do not live in the real world and wouldn't last 5 minutes if they had to!
I absolutely agree with Peter too, MP's salaries and expenses should be cut immediately in order to help us out of the mess they have got us into. Bonuses for bank employees should also be banned until they have made more of an effort to turn things around in the banks and play fair with our money that has bailed them out!
On the subject of fast food (for want of a better word) packaging getting smaller. Haven't any of you been to the movies lately?
Obviously not, or you would have seen, not just bigger bags and packages, but absolutely, gigantic containers, especially the popcorns, which incidentally, stink the whole cinema out.
I watch people struggling in, holding these containers, the size of old fashioned, metal, dustbins, accompanied by gallon size, cardboard cups, of ghastly sticky drinks.
These giant food and drink containers, are then store in specially made holes in the arms of the seats, meaning that if you are not stupid enough to buy, and try, to eat and drink all this muck, in the two hour period of the film, then your elbow just keeps getting stuck in these stupid holes. I wish the idiots who bought them, would get their brains stuck in them, but I suppose that's too much to ask for, as I am sure their brains would quite easily pass through the aperture in the plastic straw, which they continually slurp on, ruining much of what is being said in the film.
Some years ago, when I used to smell unpleasant smell in the cinema, I had the option of masking them by lighting a cigarette. As we all know, that little pleasure is long gone.
The last time I went, was to see Slum Dog Millionaire (terrific film) spoiled only by the noises and smells of the idiots around me and their giant food habits. I had to sit there for most of the film, either holding my nose, or masking it with my hand.
I agree with Peter as regards eating in cinemas, its disgusting, the smell of popcorn and slurping of fizzy drinks is sickening.
Why dont the health gurus ban this. Surely this is against their rules, giant size popcorn and drinks!
No, they never will as the cinema conglamorates wont allow it if they're lining the govt coffers for them.
Its only the little people that take the brunt for buying it.
Banning popcorn and slurpy drinks in cinemas?
Well, it's seems some of us have been learning from the antis. A bad move.Let's not go down that road.
I don't think, that either Ann, or myself, would really want to see food, in any shape or size, banned from cinemas or anywhere else, Zitori.
What I was trying to show these morons, who would ban almost everything, is the error of their ways.
They are constantly banging on about banning this, and banning that. Yesterday it was "children", yes, you heard me right. They have decided that no one should be allowed to have more than 2 children, it's a green issue you see, all those damn kids and their mucky carbon footprints. The latest, this morning, from the ban-em brigade, are air flights. Some pea brained Labour nerd, has come up with the "brilliant" idea, of rationing flights, but that's not all, he says we should have ration books, which would be ticked off each time we buy not just flights, but petrol and indeed, any other fuel.
I can just 'em now, the "spiv" on the street corner, with his trilby turned down over his eyes, and his chalk stripe suit, and flashy tie, with a picture of a naked Gordon Brown on it, 'Pssst...wanna buy any air flight coupons Guv?'
I am not kidding, you could get more sense out of a bag of frozen peas, that's if the government haven't made them smaller, or rationed them, by the time you read this.
All I am trying to do, is hopefully make someone up there, see sense.
P.S. to earlier post.
I shouldn't have ended with "hopefully make someone up there, see sense".
Drippy Labour MPs, are not up there at all, they are well below all of us.
Sorry Peter, it's not always easy recognising when someone is being facetious in an email.
Rationing to 2 children? What a good idea! If anyone has the disgusting front to have 3 children, in this overcrowded and seriously endangered world, then it would be such a very humane action, for the greater good of course, to have them thrown in jail, and their surplus child put to sleep. It's harsh, but fair. People need to know their place, and this is caring ideology at it's best, for the future of our precious children.
Cinema... cinema...
Oh yes, I remember.
Don't do that any more. I can't bear the close proximity of monster-munching popcorn-spitting sticky childwen or the smell of their garlic-enhanced parents.
Were they able to tolerate my lovely peaceful smoking aromas without turning into demented shrieking windmills, I might just do a bit better at tolerating them.
I agree Basil, I have not been to the cinema since cinemas banned smoking and couldn't think of a worse place to be stuck amongst all these odious people and not being able to escape easily - truly terrifying!