Portion Control

It's a common myth that the older I get the more like Victor Meldrew I become, when the truth is I've been grumpy bugger for most of my life and I don't see why I should stop now. So what minor annoyance has got my goat today? Cottage Cheese!

Not that cottage cheese itself is something I find annoying. More accurately I should say that the person responsible for Tesco's "lighter choices" cottage cheese with chilli is now on my ever growing list of first against the wall when the revolution comes. Many of you may know that in recent years I have joined my wife in following (however vaguely at times) the weight watchers diet system and though I say it myself haven't done bad at all in shedding 3 or 4 stone to reduce (BMI-wise) from obese, through overweight, to finally "in-weight" for the first time in a decade. Now those helpful people at Tesco actually add to there lighter choices range the weight watchers points contained in the product, which does make things easier than faffing about with arcane formulea or calculators. So plus point to them for that.

But why I ask you...I mean what is the point or listing that a point value per serving on a pot that has no bearing at all on the size of the pot itself! 1 point it says in a nice big red high visibility number to comfort you. The small print however...ah yes, you've always got to read the small print...notes that 1 point is per "serving" - not for the whole pot. That in itself isn't what gave me a Victor moment. No, it's the fact that a serving didn't seem to be based on how much would be a sensible amount to eat, but rather how much of the stuff would equate to one point. So a serving becomes 60g.... in a pot that has a total of 150g. For those not so quick with the maths, that means the whole pot is two and a half servings. For goodness sake couldn't you just have made the pot 120g or 180g so some poor sod doesn't get short changed with half a serving! Or perhaps list the point value for 75g? Or god forbid the whole pot even - because I would be hard pushed to find anyone who after polishing off the whole pot in one go could in honesty say "that was a bit greedy of me".

I know, i hear you say, why am I ranting over such a small detail? As ever.....because I can :)