AIBU to think that producers should have to declare a 'usable volume' on liquid products?

[Lougle]

DH complains that when he's serving soup, the container says it's, for example, 600g, but he puts 300g in the first bowl then there's only 260g for the other bowl.

Today I decided to push this as far as I could. Covent Garden Pumpkin soup. 560g. Now, it's a Tetra Pak, so tricky to get it all. I poured it out and shook it as much as I could. 520g. So I cut it open and used a spatula to scrape it all out. 553g

Technically, I suppose, we're close to 560g. But nobody who has this soup is going to do what I did and actually get 560g out of it.

I think producers should have to declare the usable mass under standard conditions (pour it out, perhaps give it a few shakes and a tap).

I don't think they should have to take account of the wastage that comes from pouring it into a pan and heating it, or what might get left behind in the bowl if you aren't a bread wiper. That would be silly.

But then, the other part of me thinks that producers don't have to account for the stalks on grapes, or the skin on onions... it's a minefield. I guess that's why we see people snapping the stalk off a broccoli before weighing it, which is probably why a lot of broccoli is wrapped in plastic these days.

I was thinking this about some face cream I bought with a very heavy lid and a whole pump action going on where you turn/screw the bottle for the nozzle to pop up. You can see the tube inside with the liquid in it surrounded by plastic, a gap then the outer layer of plastic. The weight of the plastic and pump and lid must be at least x3 the amount of the liquid. I did wonder how they legally define the weight as with or without packaging.

This reminds me of the thread about the skinflint husband who gave the cat swilled out juice from its food sachets.

I'm the queen of turning bottles upside down to get the last drops out. Currently in my house there is a Boots eye makeup remover bottle, a liquid detergent bottle, a ketchup bottle and a shampoo bottle all perched precariously on their lids

The declared weight or volume is of the product, not the product + packaging.

I voted YABU because I think that it is a matter of common sense that the packaging will prevent 100% extraction. If manufacturers had a habit of deliberately making it hard to get out the last bits, then perhaps it might make sense to do as the OP suggests. But I don't think that's what happens, because I can't see how they would benefit from that. They have other tricks for making it look like you are getting more than is actually the case. No need to waste product to achieve that.

I do think it is annoying that expensive beauty-type potions leave a lot of product left in the packaging after you have used the standard mechanism for extracting it. But OTOH, this does make it possible for us to experience the thrill of getting one over on The Man by sawing the packaging open and ferreting out the precious remains

Personally, I'm happy to judge it by eye, which is easy if you use matching bowls for everyone.

And I'm autistic, so inclined to be particular about this sort of thing.

I think you and your husband are well matched to be splitting soup like this

weighing out portions 😄

i think you should make this a proper research project between the two of you.

you’d enjoy it. Write all the soup manufacturers

in our slapdash household (no irony we are slapdash) we swirl a bit of water around the carton, and add that to the soup. Often the soup is quite thick so adding the water is good.

i have a friend who dilutes all soups with equal amounts of water…, all her soups are watery as fuck

did not realise there were so many different ways to eat sad cardboard packaged soup 😁

I just work out how much by eye - fill to the same level in each bowl.

Just put the bottle on one side and start the new one. When you’ve used a quarter of that, empty the remains of the old one into it. No stress.

The e marker next to the weight on a food item is an estimated average weight. It's not mandatory as far as I remember but there is a tolerance for the estimated weight.

I use the centrifugal force method, give a couple of good old swings to get it to the bottom of the bottle.

Don’t people just have a carton each?!

YANBU, this is a bugbear of mine, some packaging seems designed to make it easy to waste part of the contents, Sun Pat peanut butter I'm looking at you. I bought long handled teaspoons from the pound shop to make it easier to get the last bits out.

Toiletries are another big one, there's always loads stuck to the inside that won't come out, even when stood upside down.

But I'm surprised that you've not been rinsing the last bits into your bowls up to now. I thought everyone did that.

I just want to say that using scales for portions is totally fine.

We don't do it with majority of the food, because we can compare by eye well enough, but when it comes to dividing a shredded Parmasan package using scales gives satisfactory result fast, so we just use them.

Yes, I found myself wondering why on earth he was measuring soup so pedantically!
Unless he was the husband on that post this week where the wife wasn’t getting enough to eat because she claimed her husband was greedy ?!

I would look at it. Which has always seemed precise enough to be honest

I do! Or I might have half (measured by eye) and then something substantial on the side like a sandwich or avocado on toast. If I am just having bread / toast with soup, I definitely have a carton

If he's weighing the soup after heating it up, then surely some will have evaporated during heating so you're never going to know exactly how much you have to divide up? Unless of course you decant from the saucepan into another vessel to see how much there is, and then divide that between the serving bowls .

No the e means "net" ie the weight of the whole thing minus the weight of the packaging.

Sorry I think YABU @Lougle - or your DH is. Unless he is going to do the rinsing-out-with-milk thing mentioned by PP (which yes I also do) then he knows full well that he left a fair bit inside the carton and is wrong to take 300g for himself leaving only 260g for you. The producers aren't responsible for whether you do the frugal-rinsing to get out the last drop, they just have to declare how much soup they put in.

Marmite and other spread jars are obviously designed in such a way that you won't be able to get at the stuff underneath the wider neck of the jar. Maybe you could if you use your finger and get it all sticky and horrid, but certainly not if you use a knife like most people do.

Also with the newer 500ml E45 tubs, unless you have narrow hands and very long fingers, you can end up barely getting any more out to be useable than you can with the 350ml tubs.

I've never done this in my life
I go by what it looks like

No, the 'e' or 'estimated sign' does relate to the average weight of the contents. The fact that it's net of the packaging weight is universal, and not dependent on whether the sign is shown.

The sign indicates that:

• the average quantity in a batch of packs is not less than the nominal amount shown on the label;
• the proportion of packs in each batch that are underfilled by more than a tolerable error is small enough for batches to satisfy legal requirements;
• no pack has a negative error greater than twice the tolerable negative error.

My boyfriend was saying similar the other day about crumbly cheese. There is a lot of cheese stuck to the inside of the packet, making it so we actually get to eat less cheese than advertised and then we have to buy more. He thought it was a ploy by Big Cheese but sounds like they have colluded with Big Soup! I wonder what other Big Foods are involved

I think this is a container problem.

The soups in the bucket-type plastic tubs with the snappy off lid you can get it all out, and instead of the spatula, pour some water or cream into the container, put the lid back on, and shake vigorously.

You get MORE this way, not LESS.

By looking

I would always rinse out the carton too.

And with tons of tomatoes etc - you rinse with water.

Its very annoying with things like cosmetics etc and creams in pump action containers - you can very rarely get all of that.