Remember walking in to your old elementary school and sitting at your desk and somehow not being able to fit?  Obviously there's an easy explanation for that, you're twice as tall as you were in the 5th grade, but how do you explain looking at that Little Debbie package in your hand and thinking, didn't these used to be bigger?  Have we just grown like in the case of our school desks or is there something else afoot?

I once heard an old proverb that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it'll jump out immediately, but if you put it in a pot of room temperature water and gradually raise the heat, it'll cook to death.  It's much easier to notice the price increases on what what we buy, so are these companies trying to cook us in our pots? Little Debbie snacks aren't the only things that have magically shrunk over time, Dunkin Donuts seem much smaller, as do their coffees. Oreos have been around for 100 years now and definitely are smaller than they were even in the 80's when I had my first one. Other companies (cough.. Helman's cough couch...) are redefining standard measurements such as the 32 oz. quart and shaving a few ounces off but forgetting to advertise it on the label.

That said, maybe portions shrinking isn't really a bad thing. Obesity in America has become an epidemic, so if our portions are shrunk for us, maybe we'll lose some inches on that waistline without trying as hard!  So, are we just crazy or companies making a molehill out of what used to be a mountain?

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