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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk.

A half-gallon seems like an absolutely obscene volume of ice-cream. That's over two litres! Why would anyone possibly need ice-cream measured by the gallon? Isn't it good that sizes are reducing from that much?

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You don't eat all the ice cream in one sitting. If this random ice cream[1] is an indication, serving size is half a cup, so a half gallon should provide 16 servings. If you like the flavor, why not buy 16 servings at a time; if you live in a household with four people, that's 4 sittings of ice cream.

[1] https://www.target.com/p/breyers-original-ice-cream-natural-...

In the UK I don't think even the largest ice cream comes in more than 1 litre. Most is around 0.5 litres. And even that for a family seems like a hell of a lot of ice cream. One litre is a crazy party volume of ice cream. A half-gallon sounds absolutely bonkers.

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/groceries/frozen/i...

Of course, with as much air as comes in the ice cream here, a half gallon is probably only a liter of actual ice cream. They definitely don't weigh nearly as much as they look like they should.

You need air in the ice cream. Ice cream without air is frozen flavored cream and you'd need tools more substantial than an ice cream scoop to serve it. The manufacture will vary the air content to dial in a particular hardness.

Ice cream in Australia is available in 4L tubs down to smaller tubs for premium brands or more exotic flavours. Doesn't seem excessive given it (ideally) takes over a week to get through.

>You don't eat all the ice cream in one sitting.

Kinda like how you don't drink a twelve pack in one night?

Maybe you don't

A half-gallon is slightly less than two liters, and is not intended to be one serving. Its a bulk purchase to serve a family, usually multiple times.

(Although I have eaten one in one go when I was a young man.)

But why are people buying a rare treat like ice cream as a bulk item to eat repeatedly? Seems like something we want to discourage?

Because

a) when you split it over four people it's only ~two evenings worth of desert.

b) don't tell me what to do with my body.

Besides the fact that American portion sizes are generally larger, with the related implications to health and food waste, a half gallon of ice cream is usually for many people, like at a party.

When I was a kid, we'd buy whole gallons of ice cream, and that would last us at least a week!

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