Sensible portions


While looking at the products we bought at Costco, I noticed something about one of them. It's a giant bag of veggie straws (basically, stick-like potato chips with vegetable flavors - Koda loves them) and on the front label it says "Sensible Portions".

At first I wondered why it said that at all, given that there's nothing very sensible about a bag of snacks this huge, but when I looked on the back I found that it's tied into instructions telling people how much they should consume. Not just information on how many portions are in one bag (20), not just how many calories each portion contains (130), but actual instructions on how much to eat (38 straws). "Eat it in portions!" it exhorts the consumer - the subtext being "Don't sit down and devour as much of this as you possibly can!" I'm going to guess that these two things go hand in hand: the selling of snack bags large enough to feed 20 people at once, and the need to instruct people not to go crazy and pig out on those very bags of snacks.





To add fuel to the fire, these snacks claim to be good for you - it's not bad to eat a lot of something if it's healthy, right? These are all natural! They have no trans fats! They are only lightly salted! These are not potato chips; these are garden veggie straws! Vegetables are good for you! Here is a giant bag of them: eat some. Eat some more! ...Except don't, because the instructions say not to. That wouldn't be sensible.

I'm not sure what this says about the state of this nation, but we've definitely got an overabundance of food going on. And we apparently need some help being sensible about it.




◆◆◆ Keywords ◆◆◆

1. sensible / （物事が）理にかなっている、（人が）良識のある
2. wonder why -- / どうして -- だろうと不思議に思う
3. given that -- / -- という事を考えると
4. (be) tied into -- / -- とつながっている、結びついている
5. consume / 摂取する、消費する
6. eat in portion / 与えられた分量で -- を食べる
7. exhort / (人に)強く勧める（=urge）
8. subtext / 言葉の裏に隠された意味合い
9. devour / ガツガツ食べる、むさぼる
10. go hand in hand / 密接に関連している、切り離して考えることが出来ない
11. pig out on -- / -- を大食いする
12. to add fuel to the fire / 火に油を注ぐ
13. claim to be -- / -- であると自称する、主張する　
14. except don't / （「 -- しないさい」と言ってから）でも実際はそうするな
15. overabundance / 過剰なこと、あふれすぎていること

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