No - in general shrinkflation is a thing - and it tends that things peaked 20 to 30 years ago. Many junk food items are larger than when they hit the shelves but substantially smaller than their peak sizes.
An example since the pandemic, a "pint" of Hagen Dazs ice cream is no longer a pint (16oz). They are now 14oz. Same with most other brands that come in that size container. Halloween candy also got pretty microscopic. The "bite size" snickers, etc, are like 1/4 the size they used to be.
>Beginning in late January 2009, 16-ounce cartons shrunk to 14 ounces, and two months later the larger 32-ounce pots lost 4 ounces. The price for either carton, however, stayed the same.
> Compared to 50 years ago, portions are larger and, based on little more than my personal impression, stuff has gotten softer and easier to eat.
The person I was replying to was talking about supermarket sold mass produced confections, and my response was valid, not based on personal experience and can be easily verified. For most of those things shrinkflation is the predominant force. Ice cream packaging sizes and prepackaged cookies haven’t gotten larger. And if anybody is surprised that these products are loaded with refined sugar (then as now) that’s on the public education system. The fats used have may have changed.
Restaurant portion sizes and content have increased but that’s a different problem. Same as dispensed soft drinks.
> gotten softer and easier to eat.
What does this even mean?
Hostess foods famously went out of business a few years ago. When I think “soft” and calorie dense I can’t imagine any time more representative than the 50s and 60s.
I believe the implication is that packaged food is even more processed than before (less fibre, more multi-syllabic ingredients). The benefit is that our bodies can extract more calories from food (ground beef provides more calories than similar amount of steak). But the increase in type-2 diabetes suggests lack of calories is not a problem for these people.
The problem is the same as with cars; it's true that the "standard size" M&M packet may be smaller now (I've not checked, but let's grant it), but most checkouts are lined with KING SIZE or SHARE SIZE which are way bigger.
