Who is Loosing Weight?

Well, certainly not me!  It is the packaging companies.  More and more consumer goods are coming in smaller packages with lesser amounts of product for more money.

Take tuna fish for example. When I was young a can of tuna made two very healthy sandwiches and there would be some leftover. I have always been partial to tuna sandwiches so I remember things like this.  The first boy I ever invited over for lunch was served a tuna sandwich and bowl of tomato soup (made with milk instead of water).  The first time I ever experienced sea sickness was during a cruise from Camden, ME to Marblehead, MA when I ate a tuna salad made with tuna packed in oil.  Needless to say,  I have never and I mean never eatten tuna packed in oil again.  There is nothing worse than chumming in a stiff wind.

Tuna cans used to contain 7 ounces of tuna.  Then the same cans were packaged with 6.5 ounces of tuna.  Now there are only 5 ounces of tuna in a can and it seems the quality is getting worse.  Unless you pay the premium price for solid white tuna, the tuna is more like cat food.  Some of my cat friends actually buy it for their feline friends.  Personally, I now can my own fresh Tuna .

Products like ice cream, bleach, cereal, spagetti sauce, candy bars and on and on are being sold in smaller amounts for more money.  Downsizing seems to be the new business plan across the board.  My favorite product packaging to watch is coffee.  Remember when a package of coffee beans was really a pound or16 ounces?  Now you have to be careful how many ounces you are buying so you have enough coffee to get through the week.

 Be a good shopper.  If you keep a price notebook jot down the size of the item and keep track of the packaging.  This practice is going to continue and the only defense is to be educated and watch for the best deals.  When items you use frequently are on sale, stock up.  Over a short period of time a product will not only go up in price but the weight will go down.  It used to be that groceries were sold in simple sizes: 1 lb, 2 liters, 1 quart, a pint, etc. Now you might have to do conversions because labeling might mix units of measurement. How many times have you been stumped by the unit pricing stickers?  Bring a calculator.

I bought two cases of Clorox bleach (when you could still get a gallon plastic bottle) and watched the price go up and the package shrink.  I bought the gallon for $1.00.  A gallon is 128 ounces which figures to .0078 an ounce. The cCorox bleach bottle holds a gallon of bleach, and the small one holds a half gallon. Ultimate Care™ holds 1.87 pints (30 fluid ounces, or 887 milliliters). Now, if I remember the conversions correctly, two pints make a quart, so this little bottle contains less than half the amount that a small bottle of regular bleach contains.  Now you pay .074 or $2.23 for the smaller bottle.  These numbers are not for other brands of bleach that have lower concentrations of bleach.  Watch out for those other brands and consider what is in the bottle and how much you are paying for it.

So while I might be dismayed that my poundage is not dropping I can be sure products around me are.  Maybe I should just market myself to Proctor and Gamble have them design a label for me and over time watch the price go up and the weight go down.  If only that would work.  Please don't send me your latest diet or magical weight loss product!  It is the connection between my brain and my elbow that is going to do the trick.