Yeah. It’s mostly about trickery, I think. I wish we (in the USA) used the same nutrition labeling system that they used (probably still do) in the Netherlands when I lived there.
They simply give the nutrition information per 100 grams across the board-- no matter if its candy, soup, snacks, or potatoes. It’s up to you to know about how many hundreds of grams you are going to consume, and there is no opportunity for manufacturers to dick around with serving size in order to confuse people into thinking they are eating healthily.
Do they still make that white, worm-like “macaroni and cheese” product? I haven’t bought a can of Boyardee in 20-25 years (:eek: I just did the math and it’s been that long?!), so I’m quite out of the loop. I remember that stuff being a bit sharp, but once you got over the somewhat alien-like nature of it, it was pretty great.
Chef Boyardee’s website does not give easy access to nutritional information.
The first hit I get with nutritional information shows 36% of the RDA for sodium and 20% of the saturated fat. The serving portion is 1 can or 216 gms which is clearly not the size I ate when I was a kid. A 14.5 oz. can is twice that so watch out for that sodium.
Serving sizes (and the sodium) is my beef with a lot of foods, too. My husband and I are counting calories, and there are far too many times I’m sitting down with a piece of paper and a calculator, trying to turn the serving size and calories on the label into something that relates to real life. My big peeve is when there is a natural serving size (like individually wrapped things), and they give the serving size in something OTHER than one individually wrapped portion. Now you’re just being spiteful.
In a more related note, beefaroni was my husband’s last meal before going into the hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery (I’ll leave the relation between the two for your imagination). He made sure to get back on that horse when he got out, because he wasn’t going to go through life afraid to eat dinner with the Chef. He’s very dedicated to his processed, canned food.
My mom’s Corningware always went on top of the stove. Parents didn’t get a microwave until I was out of the house for three years. '88ish or thereabouts-
When we were kids my sister begged our mother for Chef Boyardee for weeks, despite my repeated warnings that she’ll regret it. Finally mom broke down and bought her a can, brought it home, heated it up and served it to my excited sister. She took one bite and immediately threw up. She started listening to me after that.
This kind of food makes no emotional demands on you. It just lies there, simple, uncomplicated, unpretentious, asking nothing but to be allowed to comfort you for a few minutes… to coat your insides with a slippery substance of indeterminate composition. It’s a food that gives but does not ask anything in return, not even chewing. It’s unconditional love in a can.
