This is not about some fancy recipes to make or decorate
brownies. It’s about how the information
on the box can easily be misleading or deceptive.
On the front of this box of brownie mix the label says, “110
calories.” This looks very reasonable
for a dessert. It is less than two
graham crackers, little more than a single chocolate chip cookie. But let’s look at the fine print.
Trick number one: the
serving size is 1/20 of a package. That
seems like a very small brownie. When I
made them, I cut the finished brownies in an 8x8 pan first in half, then cut
each of those slices in half. Then I
turned it and cut again in the same way.
I had 16 small, square brownies about 2 inches on a side. Now 1/16 is not 1/20; it’s actually 25
percent larger. So 110 calories becomes
almost 140 calories. But wait!
Trick number two: the
front of the package refers us to the nutrition facts label on the side of the
package. There it says again 110
calories (with 20 servings per package), but that is for the contents of the
package only, the powdery stuff. When
you stir in the water, oil and eggs a serving size has 160 calories, which
becomes 200 calories for the size brownie I cut, and the calories from fat have
increased from 9% to 38%.
So we have a package that honestly and legally reads 110 calories,
but the brownie I put in my mouth has 200 calories, nearly double that
amount. This seems a little bit tricky,
at best. We are expecting x and getting
nearly 2x.
The government’s solution to this problem is to make the
nutritional labels larger. The
behavioral model’s solution to this problem is to promote critical
thinking. The government’s solution is
the same problem with a bigger font size, but we still have to figure it out for ourselves.
At least the behavioral model gives us a chance to be better consumers,
as this somewhat trivial case shows. And it also gives us a chance to be more
successful in many of life’s more complex challenges (where the government can't solve it for us - we still have to figure it our for ourselves).
P.S. The brownies were delicious!
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