Do they have to be this big?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by GrumpyCabbie, Oct 27, 2014.

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  1. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    It has always been said that US portion sizes are larger but this article is quite interesting.

    How McDonald's cup sizes vary around the world | Daily Mail Online

    The UK large Cola is the size of your medium and our medium is the size of your small.

    [​IMG]

    Is it appealing to value for money or greed?
     
    #1 GrumpyCabbie, Oct 27, 2014
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    everything is 'big' over here.;)
     
    #2 bisco, Oct 27, 2014
  3. bingee3

    bingee3 Active Member

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    Ill drink to that
     
    #3 bingee3, Oct 27, 2014
  4. KennyGS

    KennyGS Senior Member

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    Especially waist sizes. :(

    I would be more interested to see the comparative price for a specific amount of sugary drink in different countries.
     
    #4 KennyGS, Oct 27, 2014
  5. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    The last time I went to America was the last time I felt thin. (Although I have lost more than 20kg over the past 9 months, which is good.)

    The comparative price for sugary drinks would be interesting. But everything - not just sugary drinks, but food, petrol, housing, and much more - is so much cheaper in America than it is in other developed countries that it would be hard to make it a meaningful comparison. On my recent holiday to Britain, I'd say that most things (except petrol and ... ummmm..... maybe boomerangs and Vegemite) were between 30% and 70% cheaper than we'd pay in Australia. And America is cheaper than Britain.

    But a comparison of sugary drink prices vs other food in each country might be interesting. Hard to do, though, given the seasonality of healthy food. At the moment here, a 1.25l bottle of Coke costs about A$ 2.50 in the supermarket, and a kilo of tomatoes costs about A$ 8.50. And a 0.6l bottle of Coke costs about A$ 4. At other times of year, that same kilo of tomatoes would cost A$ 2. So I don't know how you'd work out a meaningful comparison.
     
    #5 hkmb, Oct 27, 2014
  6. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    There's an error in the article. Canada does not share the same McDonald's beverage size as the U.S. I know this for a fact cause I mistakenly (and stupidly) ordered a large once in the U.S. and I didn't want to finish it. A medium in Canada is just under 0.5 L. A medium in the U.S. (21 US oz) is 621 mL.


    Japan or the UK is what I visually expect as S/M/L. The 30 oz US size is just massive to me. Even a 14 oz cup of coffee (425 mL) that I order in the morning is my limit.

    A 600 mL bottle of Coke costs more than 1.25 L?

    Here an aluminium can (325 mL) goes for anywhere from Cdn$1-$1.50. A 591mL plastic bottle goes for $1.50-$2.00 and a 2L bottle on sale can be $1, but I think regular price is maybe $2.50 or $3. A glass bottle costs more, something in the order of $2-3 for a size smaller than the plastic ones. I can't remember since I don't buy soft drinks that often.

    Of course there's a bottle fee (refundable when you return the bottle/can to the recycling depot), some provinces charge a non-refundable environmental fee so two 2L bottles can be cheaper than a case of 12 cans after you factor in the fees if you're not the one taking the cans to the depot.
     
    #6 Tideland Prius, Oct 28, 2014
  7. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    Yes. It's completely nuts. It's what the market will take, though. I guess the logic is that when I'm in a supermarket, I'm not in a desperate hurry for my Diet Coke, and I'll buy it when I see that it's on special offer or whatever. When I'm on the road and need a cold Diet Coke right now, I'll pay whatever I have to.

    In Britain, the joy that is Poundland meant that two cold 330ml cans cost 1 pound. In Australia, you'd struggle to get change out of A$ 5 for that.

    However, in Britain, the price of a Diet Coke is irrelevant, as Diet Irn Bru is available. And that is the best thing in the world.

    In Australia, South Australia is the only state that has deposits. The rest of us really should.

    In China, the deposit on a bottle of beer (and on the crate) is so much that, if you take two crates of empties back to the shop, they'll give you a new crate of full beer and some money. Brilliant!
     
    #7 hkmb, Oct 28, 2014
  8. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Makes sense. I gave the range to indicate supermarket (refrigerated or not) vs. one out of a machine. Usually the machine is cheaper, go figure. (Except at prime locations like a stadium or movie theatre where it can cost 2x-3x what it costs in the supermarket and it's not bottled/canned but a "fountain drink")

    Never had Irn Bru. There was a British shop that imported it but has since closed.

    That is kinda funny. The problem is that the deposits can be a source of income for the homeless here (you'll often see them with trolleys full of cans) and you don't want to encourage the consumption of alcohol with the Chinese system as that means they'll get more aggressive with can/bottle collection. As they are, they're pretty unobtrusive for the most part, just rummaging through your recycables.

    Considering the amount of money we collected through our "Bottle Drive" in university for our club in one day, I'm not surprise it's perfectly livable for them to collect cans and return them (plus they're doing society a favour by taking cans/bottles out of the trash and recycling them instead of letting them go to the landfill).
     
    #8 Tideland Prius, Oct 28, 2014
  9. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    We need those larger portion sizes to maintain our larger body sizes.

    Just don't ask which is the chicken, which is the egg.
    Clothing sizes too. The wife was recently surprised to fit into a 'petite'. It wasn't her body size that changed.

    'Vanity' sizing has long been pushing women's clothing to larger sizes (or smaller labels for the same size), but I've found it in some men's clothing too.
     
    #9 fuzzy1, Oct 28, 2014
  10. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Irn Bru is the stuff of the devil. What you want is Dandelion and Burdock. That'll put hairs on your chest (y)

    I understand Irn Bru cannot be sold in Canada and rightly so :sneaky:
    BBC News - Canada orders Briton to stop selling Marmite and Irn-Bru

    And aren't diet drinks worse for you than the full sugar variety, which is saying something. But I concur with hkmb, smaller bottles of coke can be more expensive than the larger 2 litre bottles. Mainly because the smaller ones are sold at service stations. Trying to think of pricing to compare but they change depending where you buy them;

    330 ml can of coke: from 40p ($0.60) in a discount supermarket to £1 ($1.60) on average in a vending machine
    500ml plastic bottle of Coke: £1 to £1.50 ($1.60 to $2.40) Usually sold in a service station
    1.5 litre plastic bottle of Coke: £1 in a multipack at Supermarket to £2 at a convenience store.

    We have 20% vat/sales tax included.

    But I haven't really drunk Coke in ages. Too sugary and so bad for you. I usually get bottled water when I stop at a service station for supplies. A 500 ml bottle of water is about 80p ($1.30), though often they'll do 2 for £1.

    I don't smoke but should we compare the price of fags? A pack of 20 (B&H silver) here is roughly £8 ($13), or £9 for B&H Gold ($14.50). That surprised me as the last time I ever bought any for a girlfriend at the time was 8 years ago and they were only £5 then.
     
    #10 GrumpyCabbie, Oct 28, 2014
  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    doesn't bother me, i don't drink anything without alcohol in it, and i haven't been to mcdonalds in 45 years.
     
    #11 bisco, Oct 28, 2014
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  12. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Canada also banned the UK Ovaltine. Now I'm wondering if my US Ovaltine is different from the UK one, and which is better.

    Sugary drinks in the US are cheap because of politics. We have a tariff on imported sugar, and nearly all the drinks sold here use corn syrup because of its subsidized cost. It ends up in everything everything because of that.
     
    #12 Trollbait, Oct 28, 2014
  13. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    hkmb,
    What was the motivation in China to slap the high duty on the soda containers ?
     
    #13 SageBrush, Oct 28, 2014
  14. MarcSmith

    MarcSmith Active Member

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    "I went to the 7-11 today and the person in front of me ordered a "Big Gulp."
    Now do I need 32 ounces of any fluid? This drink has a smart undertow.
    Whaddaya dock your jet ski in this thing or what? I mean who do they think is
    that thirsty? Now they've come out with the Super Big Gulp. I can imagine
    they must back a tanker up to your mouth, jam a nozzle down your throat, and
    start irrigating you like some Chattahoochie Canal project or something."

    Dennis miller....off white album...
     
    #14 MarcSmith, Oct 28, 2014
  15. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    It's just a misunderstanding. The Euros do not get 24 oz of ice.
     
    #15 SageBrush, Oct 28, 2014
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  16. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    There's is probably served warm also.;)

    How prevalent are the self serve soft drinks? All the fast food places are such here.
     
    #16 Trollbait, Oct 28, 2014
  17. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Never seen that. It would just be abused. I remember one of the Motorway service stations offered free coffee top ups and ended up with dozens of old folk sitting around all day keeping warm for the cost of a single coffee.

    We also don't really get fast food. It's meant to be fast and cheap. Over here it's neither.
     
    #17 GrumpyCabbie, Oct 28, 2014
  18. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    Never seen that. It would just be abused. I remember one of the Motorway service stations offered free coffee top ups and ended up with dozens of old folk sitting around all day keeping warm for the cost of a single coffee.

    We also don't really get fast food. It's meant to be fast and cheap. Over here it's neither.[/QUOTE]

    McDonald's in Australia offered unlimited free coffee refills some time in the 80s. My father-in-law had this minging old paper McDonald's coffee cup in the car: whenever he wanted a drink while he was driving, he'd pull into a McDonald's and get his free refill.

    He had that cup for four years, apparently.
     
    #18 hkmb, Oct 28, 2014
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  19. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    He's got Yorkshire blood in 'im (y)
     
    #19 GrumpyCabbie, Oct 28, 2014
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  20. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    He's seventh-generation Australian (which is very unusual in a country full of recent immigrants), and is of mainly Scottish descent. But I have always thought he was born in the wrong place and had the soul of a Yorkshireman.
     
    #20 hkmb, Oct 28, 2014
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