Tangent to the pecan sandies/fatgail thing…how stupid do you have to be to PAY for the privelege of getting less? What part of “read the label” is so hard to understand? If I want cookies and know that I should not have more than 100 calories worth, I just RTFL, note the serving size and withdraw approximately 100 calories worth of food from the package.
*“Hundred-calorie packs are an ingenious way for companies to charge consumers more for less,” said CSPI Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson.
Shoppers may not notice the price differences since most varieties of 100-calorie packs are priced similarly to a box of cookies or crackers, at about $3 per box. However, when comparing the prices per ounce, the original items are by far the better value.
For example, a box of Keebler Right Bites Chips Deluxe 100-calorie packs cost $2.50, while a bag of Keebler Chips Deluxe Chocolate Chip Cookies runs $3. But the regular bag weighs four times as much, making the 100-calorie packs three-and-a-half times more expensive per ounce. Similarly, Goldfish 100-calorie packs are triple the cost per ounce of a regular package, and 100-calorie packs of Sun Chips are more than twice as expensive per ounce."*
It’s bad enough that a third of Americans are fat. But manufacters seem to also have realized that a large percentage are stupid as well.
Not much different than bottled water (or buying small packs of meat instead of buying in bulk and freezing). You’re choosing to pay extra for the convenience and/or psychological effect.
Well there is also the freshness factor. If you buy a regular pack of Oreo’s and take two weeks to eat them you are pretty much guaranteed to have stale cookies at the end. With the 100 calorie packs the last one is as fresh as the first.
Of course I have no idea how it could take anyone two weeks to get through a pack of cookies so I try no to buy them in either package.
If they’re sealed in a ziplock, they’re not going to get stale though. I used to live in a very humid area, people kept their chips/cookies, etc in ziplocks in the freezer. I never had any problem with staleness unless I didn’t close the ziplock properly. Or are people just too lazy? So we’re fat, stupid AND lazy? Jebus help us then.
My wife gets these. I’ve tried them, and I can see the appeal.
A hundred calorie chunk from a standard chocolate chip cookie will last you about ten seconds–the time it takes to chew and swallow a single bite, anyway. But the hundred calorie pack cookies, being (I dunno) aerated(? or something?) feel like a lot more food. You get a good twenty or thirty pieces, five minutes or so worth of minor foodtertainment. They’re not actually more food than a bite of a cookie, but to the agency behind the eating process, they seem like more food, and that’s what matters if you’re just looking for a way to “fill in the corners” or “tide yourself over” without overeating.
YMMV. Not the healthiest thing in the world, but definitely better than just cutting a 100 calorie chunk off of some standard sweet snack.
The person who would buy the 100 calorie pack is not looking for the best dollar-per-ounce value.* For example, it would be okay (or better!) with this person if one ounce felt like 16 ounces. So they could be perfectly rational to pay two bucks for one ounce that feels like 16, while only being willing to pay one buck for eight ounces that feel like eight.
-FrL-
*And there is no reason they should have to. Dollars per ounce is just one of several plausible and rational ways to measure food value.
Or maybe those people know themselves well enough to know that they won’t have the willpower to do that if they do buy a bigger package. Having to open another package to get more cookies is more of a psychological barrier to some people than just grabbing one more from an open package. If you know that you don’t do a very good job of controlling portions when you eat, is it stupid to delegate that task to somebody else? I don’t see how that’s any stupider than hiring someone else to do your taxes, shovel snow off your driveway, cook your food, make your clothes, or anything else that people pay others to do for them.
People do it all the time. I pay $1 for soda at my company cafeteria instead of buying a case at the store and bringing it into work. I occasionally buy bottled water instead of filling up a reusable one at the water fountain. I buy 1 pound packs of ground beef instead of buying a side of beef.
I’ll bet that if you examined your life, there are ways you could live more frugally.
If you’re not living on public assistance, I really don’t care what you do with the money you earn.
Well said, PunditLisa. 100 calorie packs are a convenience item, like many other things we buy. Taking Ferns’ logic to the obvious conclusion, anybody who buys less than a lifetime supply of anything is a money wasting idiot, because they could have got it cheaper in bulk.
That they appreciate the freshness of an unopened pack, the convenience of having the amount pre-measured for them and the time savings of not having to repackage their food for themselves is, of course, not a factor. They’re just too stupid to know better.
Plus the 100-calorie pack for hostess cupcakes is freaking good! I can eat, like, 1/2 of one hostess cupcake or 3 tasty little cupcakes for the same calories: Big Cupcake, Little Cupcake. The recipe is even redesigned to make them less awful for you.
Now I can hear you saying “Little Bird, if you are concerned about your calorie intake, why don’t you just eat celery, or carrots or fruit? You can eat way more for fewer calories, and even get vitamins!” Yes, I hear you–but god damn it sometimes I want to eat something that tastes like it’s trying to kill me and these little cupcakes taste like real junk food. I highly recommend them.
Except the carrot cake ones. Veggies have no place in dessert.
I don’t mind paying a little extra for the 100 calorie popcorn- especially since I know if I pop a whole bag I will eat way too much of it. By getting the 100 calorie pop- I can get butter or kettle corn, good tasting popcorn in a reasonable portion instead of getting the low-calorie, dry as toast popcorn in a whole bag :).
I also like the visual feel for what “100 calories” is for some of those foods. I’m working on controlling portion size instead of just calorie/carb/fat count and it gives me a lot more freedom and less of a “diet” feel to my life.
I agree it is a willpower thing. I take the 100 calorie pack to work knowing I can eat the entire thing guiltfree. If I have the entire pack of cookies, I may pick at them all day. So yes, it is well worth the extra money per ounce.
It all depends on how you look at it. It isn’t about ignorance it is about willing to pay for convenience.
I think the point is that consumers in the US are so used to the idea of paying more for convenience that they don’t really balk at the idea that these goods are so overpriced. You just shrug it off as a “convenince cost” when, in actuality, even the “convenience cost” of these iterms are greatly inflated. There are gradients of price and everyone seems to deem these inflations as “acceptable” just because that’s what they cost. QED. This is a very fatalistic argument, IMHO, because were people to stop buying them, companies WOULD lower their prices. Instead, companies who inflate get rewarded because, whatever it is, people will automatically justify it as “the necessary cost”. Well, it’s only “necessary” because idiots smile and swallow it and pat themselves on the pack for saving an extra five minutes of divvying up their popcorn into plastic baggies. I’m glad your five minutes is worth it.
I used to buy those cardboard cans of baked Cheetos at a local discount store for $1 each, then put “snack size” portions into ziploc sandwich bags to take to work. If I didn’t do this, I would eat the entire container in a single evening. I could have gotten them out of the vending machine at work for sixty cents, or bought the packs of smaller bags instead, but it was worth my time to save a few bucks.
or whatever. I like to make up my own snack packs in ziplocks, but sometimes I don’t have time. And like others, sometimes I just don’t have the willpower to stop at a single serving if more are available.
But which is cheaper if you are only going to eat 100 calories worth and throw away the rest?
Actually I had no idea those were so expensive, I have seen bags of potato chips for $0.50, some for $0.99 which I’m sure had more then 100 calories, if I was looking for such a snack I’d be more likely to buy one of them instead of $2.50 for a bag of cookies.
