Five a Day

The USDA has changed the recommended daily servings of produce. Following their recent policy of making dietary guidelines as complicated as possible, they've gone from suggesting "5 a day" to a sliding scale based on age and activity level. They also removed the number from their slogan, so they are now shilling "more is better." They made this change because their focus groups showed that people weren't even getting 5 servings a day, so they figured that people would be more driven to eat produce if they were faced with a vaguely motivating slogan. Clearly, these people have never studied game theory, Sesame Street, Weight Watchers, or RPGs. People need goals. Numbers are powerful. Take away the number and you take away the goal.

But wait, there's more stupidity! Instead of encouraging people to eat more servings, they're encouraging people to eat more cups of produce. What's wrong with that? I mean, telling someone to eat 5 cups of something is certainly clearer than telling them to eat 5 servings, right?

Not when you phrase it like this:
One cup of fruit is equivalent to 1 cup of cut-up fruit; one small apple, a medium pear, or a large peach; 1/2 cup dried fruit; or 8 ounces of 100% fruit juice. One cup of vegetables equals 1 cup of raw or cooked vegetables or vegetable juice, or 2 cups of leafy greens.

One cup equals 1/2 cup? One cup equals 2 cups? Forget game theory, these people have never studied math at all ever. They really do need to watch more Sesame Street.