Honey, I shrunk the snack!

London: Some of Britain's favourite snacks, including Mars bars, Cadbury Dairy Milk and cans of Coca-Cola, will all be shrunk in size, under plans to tackle obesity.

The Food Standards Agency recommended that a 49-gram bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk, should also be sold in 40-gram sizes, while a Mars Bar and Twix, which are both 58 grams, should be reduced to 50-gram portions.

Cans of fizzy drinks, which are currently 330ml, would be reduced to 250ml. The FSA said it had no intention of scrapping the existing sizes, but it wanted food and drink companies to start manufacturing the smaller sizes, "which in time will become the standard".

The proposals, subject to consultation, are likely to be very controversial with food companies, many of which have factories set up to manufacture specific-sized products.

One industry insider said: "This is going to cost an awful lot of money. The idea that Coca-Cola will rip out all their factories - which produce a European standard size - to start bottling a smaller-sized can seems unlikely."

Julian Hunt, from the The Food and Drink Federation, said food and drinks companies had already "undertaken considerable work" to offer smaller portion sizes.

Mini bars of chocolates and mini cola cans are the best thing considering that obesity is on the rise. It would become easier for adults to cut down on their intake automatically. It is easier to give children small size chocolate bars and a small bottle of fizzy drinks rather than asking them to have half of the given quantity. Restaurants serving fast food too could adopt this new idea of mini meals and reduce the portion size of the food they serve. I have observed that most of the times we eat even after we are full, just so that the food doesn't go waste. In case of small meals, chocolates or drink such a question does not arise thus saving us the extra unnecessary calories, besides, it avoids wastage. Obesity has become a worldwide problem which can be hopefully resolved with joint effort from all the people.
Naina Nair
Sharjah,UAE
Posted: July 31, 2009, 14:26