I haven’t found anything on this topic, so I’ll go ahead and ask. If it was discussed before my arrival at this messageboard, I apologize.
You buy a frozen pizza. On the front of the box is a picture of a pizza–logical enough. But in small print towards the botton are the words “serving suggestion.”
You have a bowl of cereal. On the front of the box is a picture of a bowl of cereal–just as well, since otherwise you might think it was a frozen pizza. Somewhere the magic phrase appears: “serving suggestion.”
A box of rice. On the front is a picture of a bowl of rice with parsely in it. “Serving suggestion.”
Frozen dinners, oatmeal, pancake mixes–the phrase “serving suggestion” shows up on most of them, inevitably coupled to a picture of the food in its prepared state. (Sometimes it’s phrased as “suggested serving,” but they can’t fool me.) There are exceptions to this, but not too many.
My question, therefore, is: why? Why do these various products from various companies contain the phrase “serving suggestion?” Is it some sort of bizarre superstition within the food industry? Are there tax advantages to it? Is it legal shorthand for “this stuff isn’t gonna look anywhere near as good as the picture?” Does anyone know? Or is this one of those Inexplicable Mysteries of Life?
I eagerly await answers. Maybe then my hair will stop thinning.
If the food manufacturers put a picture on a package, they are required by law to depict only what is in the package. In other words, they can’t show a picture of something that is not in the package. That is supposed to be misleading.
The loophole:
If they say “serving suggestion,” they can show the food that is in the package together with other foods.
So, Kellogs only can show the actual Frosted Flakes in the photo unless they say “serving suggestion.” If they do this, they can show the Frosted Flakes with milk and fruit.
Welcome to the board, by the way. Good question.
–Bean, who prefers to be depicted with a nice Hollandaise sauce.
And as long as we have to put “Serving Suggestion” on the box, let’s come up with a serving suggestion that’s sure to make moist the salivary glands of supermarket shoppers.
The serving siggestion for matzo ball soup was a mistake. I wonder who has ever been motivated to buy this product because of how deee-lish it looks on the package.
And what are matzohs, anyway? Why are they being emasculated? Is this something like Rocky Mountain Oysters?
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
Projector Emeritus, Grand Academy of Lagado
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
As usual, the words ‘serving suggestion’ were added after someone with far too much time on their hands sued because they didn’t get a sprig of parsley or the plate or something.
So, to summarize, the regulation is to protect those stupid enough to think the box of cereal contains cereal AND milk AND bananas (or whatever). But it can be circumvented just by adding the magic words “serving suggestion”…which transforms it from mostly useless to completely useless.
Oh well, I suppose it makes as much sense as requiring the Nutrition Facts lable on my bottled water. (Calories: 0. Total Fat: 0g. Sodium: 0mg. Protein: 0g.)