and I'll be 59 next week. Sizes shrink, prices don't, then they come out with the "Large Economy Size" and the process starts all over again.

At least they could have made your hot dogs a bit smaller, and kept eight of them in the package. Nothing worse than a wiener shortage.

was $.79 a quart in the 1970's. The price goes up every time there's a freeze in Florida. It somehow never ever goes down.

I have to say, I don't remember food prices over the years as I do with gasoline prices!

That one gets me. Smaller and smaller and smaller!

I'll have to check the hot dog packages at the store tomorrow to see what's up.

Oh yah, shrinkage indeed.

because food prices aren't going up.

Instead of giving you 64 ounces, they've shrunk the top half of the bottles and only give you 60 ounces. The shrinkage is hard to notice, but I try to read the fine print on labels.

6 if they are the longer bun length. Could that explain why you were missing one?

ever since I was a kid. That's been the way they came since I could remember.

packaging sizes. For a brief while, the kraft shredded cheese packages went from 8 ounces down to 7 where I am, but there must have been an outcry of ticked off consumers, because after a month or two they were right back up to 8. But other things have shrunk and stayed shrunk, like ice cream, which used to come in 'half gallon' sizes, and now most often seems to be 1.5 quart.

Like this:


And it really screws up recipes when the "standard" can size is changed. For instance, now tuna comes in smaller than 6 ounce cans so a recipe for tuna casserole that used two 6 oz cans is now shorted by as much as an ounce. But then, the "premium" tuna I got at Costco is in a 7 ounce can so two of those would have two ounces MORE tuna than Mom's old recipe! Of course now I don't use canned vegetables like she did so I can throw more or fewer frozen vegetables into the recipe to adjust the proportions.

Going from brand to brand, I notice extreme variability in how much is just water or oil vs how much meat you actually get in a given can. What I basically decided was that it was pointless to try and buy 'bargain' brands, because you ended up getting so much more water and so much less fish that you were losing money over simply buying the 'name' products. I've forgotten the brand name, but there was one I bought that draining it left something less than 1/5th of the bottom of the can covered in loose flakes of what I at least hope was tuna - a six ounce can with maybe an ounce of meat when all was said and done.

More good chunky tuna and not as much liquid - which disappoints the cat a lot since he gets the "tuny juice." Plus, getting the packs with a half dozen cans at least gives me consistency for that batch.

But we don't eat as much tuna as we used to. About once a year I got a "loaf" of tuna fish cans from Costco and we work our way through them. Same for canned salmon. As often as not we have "fish burgers" made with both tuna and salmon instead of casseroles. Mixing the two fish types gives better flavor to my fish burger recipe and makes a nice change. My recipe is loosely based on this one: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/bbq-tuna-fritters/detail.aspx but I don't pan fry - I spray a cookie sheet, shape the patties, chill for an hour and then bake the "burgers" - less grease and healthier. Sometimes I put cheese on top, depending on what I have in the house and the sauce mixed in varies - BBQ, teriyaki, whatever I feel like that day.

boil up some elbow noodles with celery slices, drain, add a little butter and tuna.

Pretty simple, but it was a way to stretch the can of tuna into a meal for 4 people.

I mostly end up using it to make sandwiches when I feel the urge for some these days.

The old fashioned kind of mac & cheese with the powdered shit. Cook mac & cheese according to the box, add a can of whatever kind of soup (cream of mushroom, celery, cheddar cheese & broccoli), nuke a 16 ounce package of frozen vegetables until not quite done (I like the blends with broccoli, carrots, cauliflower), add extra cheese, a can of mushrooms, and whatever herbs & spices you like. Bake until hot & bubbly.

Can of tuna under $1, box of mac & cheese on sale $1, vegetables about $1.50, extras maybe another couple of dollars - that makes 2-3 meals for the two of us, easy and cheap. Mom used to feed six of us that with a salad of iceburg lettuce and oil & vinegar spiced up with seasoned salt for dressing.

I'm trying to get away from sandwiches, but not eating them is not helping me lose weight. Now I want to mix up some tuna for sandwiches this week!

Tuna from a can
Elbow macaroni, cooked
Campbells Cream Of Mushroom Soup
Bag of frozen peas, thawed

Mix, put in casserole dish, back 1/2 hr.

To get really fancy, sprinkle bread crumbs on top before baking.

Yup, you bet. Good stuff for sure.

It really improves the flavor.

sprinkled on top. That'll get the church folks all a-twitter.

Using canned salmon, cr mushroom soup, thawed peas, a big bag of potato chips. Gramma's best hot dish recipe! So exotic!

It goes wonderfully with shredded carrot green jello molded salad.

You got your four basic food groups represented in that meal: meat, cream soup, chips, and jello! The peas and carrots are like icing on the cake, really.

guess what we're having for supper tonight? thanks for posting this, have kinda forgotten about this casserole dish... LOVE IT.

Love that stuff!

it's the only thing I use the canned salmon for. I don't buy tuna much anymore unless its a really good sale.

...so there's some shrinkage there as well.

.... that's the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about.

I walk down the cereal aisle. It's the land of the incredible shrinking boxes and the incredible increasing prices. $5+ for cereal that's GROWN HERE? I often wonder how small those boxes will get. Maybe before long we'll end up paying $10 and getting nothing. (Exaggerating for effect.)

1 box of quick cooking oatmeal goes for about $1.50 (or less on sale) and has about 13 servings. Much more filling than the cold cereals!

I do buy cold cereal - but only on sale. Today I got four boxes of one favorite brand buy one get one - I love BOGO deals! But I only buy that kind when they have those deals and even then, it seems too expensive.

How long had Domino fooled me on this before I finally noticed?

When we were still living in the south I'd buy the Dixie Crystal brand, even if it cost more, because it was still five pounds.

It's only been this year that sugar shrunk from 5 lb to 4, at least in Pennsylvania. But a 10-lb. bag of sugar is still 10 lbs.

At least as long as I remember, should be 16 oz though.

I did not know that. We always but Hebrew National I just thought a standard package was 8.

I am not sure if that is the real reason or not.

Didn't you notice how FUN it was figuring out where your food went! They got Fun-Paks of candy and probably Fun-Buns by now. Someday it'll just be the Idea of food! But that'll cost you.

I think of fun-sized as, aw seven or eight inches

I've been noticing tiny, thin little rolls of TP packaged as "double" or even "triple" rolls the last year or so.

A double roll has half of what it once had; and a triple roll 1/3 of its former size.

...fuck up the most productive farmland on Earth.

Want some fracking fluid with your pasta (durum wheat), tofu (soybeans), and beet sugar?

that hotdogs came in packs of 8 while most hotdog buns came in packs of 12, or 10.


So, shrinking food...

how about coffee. It's been a long time since a can of coffee weighed in at 16 oz. Now it's 13 oz.

but I don't buy hot dogs very often. It's been happening in everything else... canned goods, sugar, coffee, ice cream - but of course the prices are the same!

It's simply another way for corporations to profit excessively.

A quart and a half--a 25% reduction--all for the same price, if not more!

It's "frozen dairy product".

PB containers look the same size, but did you ever notice they don't hold as much? PB containers used to 1 lb, but now they're 15 oz. thanks to a sneaky packaging trick: an inverted dome. You have to look at the bottom to see it.

I saw you post up thread about Hebrew National always having 7 dogs. I had no idea. We just cook hot dogs, never noticed the number.

Most companies remove the peanut oil and replace it with cottonseed or other oil. They can sell the peanut oil separately for a good price.
A few brands are just peanuts and maybe salt.

I always buy the big package -250 napkins.
They are now about an inch smaller in length and width.
OK, there may still be 250 but the size is much smaller.
Who are they kidding. This is a price increase. Same count, far less paper napkin.
We all know the list is long. Who do the manufacturers think they are kidding.

One fooled.....

Weird . . . our bottoms that need wiping aren't.

I was so pissed when I realized that Reese's cups had shrunk.

Can't draw media attention to this at all. Even when I encounter shoppers in the food stores and ask if they notice how much the items have been reduced they are ALL unaware. I have to explain the ounces that have been cut from same-looking packages. There is practically no gallons, half gallons, no more 16 oz or lb items anywhere. And the stuff is in packaging that looks identical to the larger volume packages. At least the food industry ought to be required to change the package when they change the amount. Wonder why that can of beans no longer feeds four to six? Because one to two servings have been eliminated. But few seem to notice or even care.

I even took time to write to 5 major food manufacturers about their products dwindling amount. Got back NO responses.

And they usually coincide with price raises.