During the previous round of shirkflation I warned people about knowing what year a recipe was from because “a can” means something different in 2004 than in 2010. And now it means something different again in 2025.
Now boxes are getting the shrink treatment too.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/618032
using measurements like ‘a can’ is just a bad idea anyways…
Which is why a lot of recipes will say “One 14 oz can of…”
But they didn’t start saying that until 2008.
as they should
Yeah but a can is basically one unit. Once a can is opened it usually has to be used relatively quickly, so I would much rather use an entire can than measure out a fractional number of cans to be precise with measurements. It depends on the ingredient of course but eg with beans it really doesn’t matter to get the exact weight.
It’s American by nature.
“It’s 1950 and a can is a can is a can, everyone knows how big a can is. And it will never change!”
No.
You need to think in a Truman-Eisenhower can, a Reagan can, a Bush can and an Obama can just as you do about dollars for pretty much every year on record.
Now, I wonder: How many 1979 dollars in a 1990 box of Kellogs?
While this is true, Betty Crocker is shooting themselves in the foot with this.
Back in the day having a recipe for a specific box made cooking easier and locked people into one brand of ingredients.
This move is undoing a lot of the marketing they did back in the 40s and 50s
Yeah they’re really burning that 1940s marketing asset
I had a chicken casserole recipe and it called for “a can of cream of chicken soup”. Ok, this soup comes in the normal, single serving size and the jumbo “cooking for a family” size. It made the recipe unusable.
anything that calls for a can of cream of chicken soup was going to end up the same way regardless.