Caveat Emptor

If you've been paying attention lately, you'll have noticed that a lot of items at the store are shrinking. For instance, most cartons of ice cream aren't a half gallon anymore, they're only 1.75 quarts. From what I hear, Jimmy Dean sausage rolls have also gotten smaller (Warning: clip is hilarious, but the language gets pretty colorful towards the end). Companies do this because more people remember how much an items costs vs. the exactly quantity that's in it. So people are happy that the price is the same without realizing that they're not getting what they used to be getting In the end though, the quantity is right there on the package, and it's up to the consumer to be aware of what they're buying.

In some cases though, things aren't so simple. Take fountain drinks, for instance. Everywhere I've ever bought a fountain drink offers sizes like "small", "medium", and "large". I don't have evidence to back this up, but it seems like a "large" coke isn't as large as it used to be. Not that I'm advocating that we all be drinking copious amounts of coke at any given meal, I just think think it would be a great benefit to the consumer if companies were required to advertise cup volume rather than arbitrary size name. After digging on their websites, I found out that the cup sizes are relatively consistant at McDonald's and Sonic, but Burger King cups are much bigger per size. However, you'd never know this from lookig at their menu boards. (Note to self: make cup size conversion chart to ensure proper ordering between restaurants).

Even if restaurants were required to advertise their cup sizes, there is still going to be a discrepancy in quantity of drink based on the amount of ice in the cup, but at least we'd have something definitive to judge by. And while I'm on this subject, I would love to know how much time is put into determining what ice shape and straw diameter is used at each fast food chain. It may be different at a local watering hole that just installs any old ice machine and buys their straws at Sam's, but I would think a company the size of McDonald's has spent money studying their ice. If you think I'm off my rocker here, pay attention to the drink dispenser next time you go to a drive-thru. It's become more common for these dispensers to have a button that drops the perfect amount of ice for the size cup you ordered, then another button that dispenses the correct amount of liquid to fill the remaining space in the cup. What I want to know is whether the shapes and amounts are standard to all McDonald's or if the manager at each location can tweek the setting to accomodate the shape of their ice and the tastes of the local market. I'm sure that at the very least, McDonald's dictates how many fluid ounces should be put in each cup, regardless of ice shape. I don't know if Sonic uses similar dispensers because I can't see what they're doing from my car, but I do know that every Sonic I've ever been too has the same kind of ice. And while I love their ice, I think that if you took two cups of the same size and filled one with Sonic ice and one with McDonald's ice, then measured how much space was left for liquid, the Sonic cup will hold less drink. I'm basing this on the fact that Sonic's ice is so tiny, it's liable to settle closer together and leave less room in-between cubes for liquid. Think about that next time you order "Route 44".