According to its label  , a pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream contains four servings  . But when was the last time you measured out a fourth of a container of Cookies & Cream, then put the rest away for another day? For many people, the reality is that much of a pint can easily disappear in one sitting. A large package of Cool Ranch Doritos lists a single serving as roughly 12 chips, but it's hard to imagine keeping count of every last chip as you dig into a bag. Canned soup may be one of the more obvious examples. According to its label, a single serving of Campbell's Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle soup is one cup--just under half a can-- and contains about 790 milligrams of sodium  . But in a national survey of 1,000 consumers, only 10 percent of people said they would eat a one-cup portion. Most, about 64 percent, said they would eat an entire can at one time, taking in 1,840 milligrams of sodium in a sitting. That is roughly 80 percent of the 2,300 milligrams recommended as the upper limit for daily salt intake. In the face of increasing criticism, the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) has been under pressure for years to force food makers to include more realistic serving-size information on their labels. The agency regulates the serving sizes that can be listed on packages by providing food makers with detailed instructions to follow, which list the amounts of a specific food that a person would "customarily consume" in a typical sitting. But critics say these so-called reference amounts are often laughably small because they're based in part on surveys of eating behavior that were carried out in the 1970s, when Americans ate less food and portions had not been supersized. Now, in an effort to emphasize the problems with some labels, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, has picked out what it says are some of the worst offenders. At the top of its list are labels for canned soups, ice cream, coffee creamers and nonstick cooking sprays--all of which grossly understate   the calories, sodium and saturated fat the average person typically consumes when eating these foods. The F.D.A. has been in the process of revising existing food labels since 2005. But the agency has been somewhat tight-lipped about where it is in the process and any changes it plans to make, like whether labels should include details on added sugars or just total sugar, for example, and whether calories should be emphasized less or more than they are now. This fall, the Institute of Medicine is expected to release its own report on food packaging and labeling as well. Which might be the proper title for the passage?
Problem with serving sizes Trend of packaging and labeling Relationship between diet and health Efforts to reduce criticism