So I'm about to chow down on some "Healthy Harvest" pasta from Ronzoni, which carries the following diet-friendly nutrition facts:
Notice the serving size there. Now, here are the cooking instructions:
Aaand the net weight of the box:
If you do the math, you'll notice that the calorie counters are getting screwed if they cook the recommended 1/4 of a box, which is a much bigger portion than the numbers on the nutrition facts account for. Gotta love corporate dishonesty! I had some fun with this one.
The Letter
Dear Ronzoni,
If you believe Sarah Palin--and I absolutely do--you know that soon, in accordance with the Obama health care plan, every overweight American will be rounded up and put down like a stray pit bull with mailman on his breath. It is for this reason that I try to watch my weight, splurging only when there are 25 cent wings at bingo night. Your pasta seemed like just the thing to help me trim the waistline, with its "Healthy Harvest" logo splashed across the box bigger than a billboard over a Vegas strip club. Taking you at your word, I grabbed a box and thought no more of it.
As it turns out, I'd have been just as well off taking one of those Vegas strippers at her word when she told me it was my baby she was carrying. My wife, whose eyes allow her to read font sizes smaller than 54, checked out your nutritional facts. 180 calories in a 2-ounce serving...ok, not bad. However, your cooking instructions suggest that for a single serving, I should cook a quarter of the box.
A quarter of a box is approximately 3.3 ounces, over 50 percent more than the portion listed on the nutrition section. Now I'm no math whiz, but 50 percent is slightly more than the percentage of coin flips I expect to win, and that's certainly not trivial. Think about it: what if I got 50 percent more than I bargained for with everything I ate or drank? I would spend all day shaking uncontrollably from the extra caffeine in my coffee, bound to the toilet shitting myself from the extra laxative in Activia yogurt, and I'd most certainly die of alcohol poisoning from my MGD 64.
Activia + MGD 64 = Bad Night
On top of that, no offense, but if I'm going to be eating 90 extra calories anyway, I wouldn't waste it on your pasta. For 90 calories, I could top my pasta with a strip of bacon. I could drink another 1.5 MGD 64s. Hell, I could even have a fourth Twinkie with dessert.
"Sorry, I can't finish these. I ate Ronzoni for dinner."
In short, Ronzoni, I'm trying to be careful with my weight. I wish you would be equally careful with your box.
The Response
I'm not sure what it is, but it seems like I can't even get an automated form letter from these people anymore. I can only hope that means a real human is at least reading enough of these letters to get pissed off...
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