King size drinks: then and now

From the Sociological Images blog, a provocative post comparing the "king size" beverages of yesteryear with today's behemoth cups:

Compare it to this sign at Long John Silver's, where the smallest size is 20 oz., and a 32-oz. medium soda, presented as the default size, is nearly 3 times as large as the 1950s king-size double serving (though, as a reader pointed out and I didn't think to mention, we do have to make some allowance for ice in the cup).
The gas station nearest me used to have fountain drink cups that started at 20 oz. I noticed recently they've completely dropped that size; the smallest cup you can now buy is 32 oz. The largest is a whopping 64 oz. I am actually curious how a person gets it home in their car, as I don't see how it would fit in a standard cup holder. Perhaps you buckle it into an empty seat?

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Anonymous

So, take the 64 ounce cup, put in ice, fill it with water. Hydration all day long, no sugar, no fat, no problem. Geesh! It is all about what you are putting in the cup, not the size of it.
carolw

When I was a kid in the 70′s, I remember the drinks that came with a Happy Meal being about 6 oz., and sodas from machines being in glass bottles, what were those, 8-10 oz? If I drink a 20 oz bottle of soda now, it about makes me ill. Water is the way to go. Mt brother-in-law has one of those “Co-Pilot” 64-ouncers, and he’ll fill it up and drink out of it all day. I grew up drinking Coke and Dr. Pepper, but in the last few years, I’ve lost my taste for them. I have a cola occasionally, but I find that I can’t even finish a can of Coke now. It’s too sweet.
jackie31337

I grew up in the USA and moved to Finland 12 years ago. I’ve gotten so used to serving sizes being smaller here that it trips me up every time I go back to visit the USA. Our small is 250ml (about 8 fl oz), medium is 400ml (about 14 fl oz), and our large is 500ml (about 16 fl oz). Last summer, I mistakenly ordered a “medium” meal at Burger King, forgetting how much bigger medium is there.
Shawn Wolfe

A bonny street lass stays boney in The Decade 1970s by indulging in the occasional normal human-size beverage. To wit, fat-asses, to wit!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/4948398055/in/set-72157614032028033/
fjn

I feel the need to post on of my favorite
Onion articles:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/cocacola-introduces-new-30liter-size,1696/
danegeld

Ok, so are you saying that it’s a good thing that people in the USA have the freedom to buy these oversized portions of soda, even though they can damage health and lead to diabetes, it’s a personal freedom to choose whether or not to buy them – or are you saying that selling this type of beverage is wrong and should be regulated, or that it should be permitted but people should be educated that it’s unhealthy, e.g. a black band round the base of all extra large cups stating that it’ll mess up your kidneys?

How does this article on soda cups square with the recent BoingBoing posting of what a “pot” container should look like, and whether selling pot legally should be allowed under prop 19, given that it’d lead to some extra lung cancers and lost productivity through incapacity? It looks like BoingBoing is taking an inconsistent position, selling soda is wrong, selling drugs is right?

anyways, I’m off to kowtow to some US security demands, laters
Anonymous

My wife and I are not wimpy eaters. We love to hit the buffet restaurants and we can out-eat our big Italian friend. But as Canadians, I think my wife and I would get licked by the Americans.

During our honeymoon to Hawaii a few years back, we went to the Old Cheesecake Factory for lunch and grabbed an entree (I believe it was a pasta entree). We’ve already heard about American portion sizes, so we decided to split the entree between the two of us. It was still too much, so we decided to grab a doggy bag.

That doggy bag was good enough for two more meals. So one lunch entree was good enough to supply two not-so-wimpy eaters with three meals. That’s *SIX* meals in a single American portion size.

Now granted, we weren’t eating until we were pain and rolling out the door like we would at a buffet, but six meals seems a little much for a single meal portion.
Haldor

A small Coke at McDonald’s has 150 calories, which amounts to around 13 fluid oz. Compare with 12 fluid oz in a can of Coke, which is 140 calories.
Miss Cellania

I found the post:

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/10/25/changing-soda-serving-sizes/
Anonymous

Costcos in California and Las Vegas sell Coke from Mexico in case lots that are made with cane sugar. The flavor is not the same as Coco-Cola localizes it’s flavor blends for cultural preferences. By the way we no longer get 6-packs of soda anymore in our stores, 12-packs, cases(24) and at Costco 32 can flats.
billstewart

And of course that 12 ounce drink is replacing two 7 ounce drinks, at least if the other soda flavors were the same size as the old small Coke bottles.
gwailo_joe

Whoh: citation needed on the 64oz size. . .I read the sign and after the modern joke of 12oz king size (sure, I get it. . .) But a 40 (!) of soda?! Sure. . .I guess I get that too. . .but ugh personally.

And the behemoth looking thing fits in a car cup holder so bulgy-like ENOUGH: show me the 64!

Thats. . . .a half gallon! Of freaking soda pop! A sign of the Decline : O
- Anonymous
  
  Here ya’ go:
  
  “…When the 32-ounce Big GulpÂ® drink was introduced in 1980, it was the biggest fountain soft drink on the market. Eight years later, 7-Eleven introduced the giant 64-ounce Double GulpÂ® beverage, still one of the biggest fountain soft drinks on the market.”
  
  http://corp.7-eleven.com/AboutUs/FunFacts/tabid/77/Default.aspx
  - Anonymous
    
    I guess the news is that you cannot even get the smaller sizes anymore, but as far as the 64oz, that’s been around for OVER TWO DECADES, Cory. I decried it then, as now, but this post makes it seem like this is something new. Its something Reagan initiated.
eccentriffic

It’s not 64 oz., but the Maverick big gulp cup is at least 44 oz…still pretty damn big. I think it must be a gas station thing.

My husband and I were shopping around last night for a bigger coffee mug and also stumbled upon a 40 oz Thermos. Wow…more coffee please!

http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless-Beverage-Bottle-Midnight/dp/B0017IHRNM

Speaking of food portions, I totally agree with them being too big. Once at Olive Garden I ordered a lunch size entree. I was told that, despite it costing a lot less, it only had one less ravioli. At least I saved money…
Anonymous

People apparently just can’t not worry about what other people are doing. 90% of the people in these comments claim to not want much if any soda but take some level of offense to other people’s drink sizes of the same. McDonald’s already has no 44 anymore because of the nosy pantywaist demographic, I’m wondering if they’ll ever just leave people alone to enjoy what they want.

Also, for the couple of comments implying that HFCS is used nefariously as some sort of addictive tool, just look into price controls of sugar and corn subsidies for the real answer. Get rid of those and there’d be sugar throughout. It’s cheap in most of the world, but not here. In Coca-Cola amounts, the difference is expensive.

Just drink your water, shield your eyes from the awful ‘they’ rabble Antinous refers to, and get on with something related to your own life maybe.
the_headless_rabbit

12 oz? 20 oz? 32 oz? 64 oz?

What are these amounts in normal units of measure?
- MythicalMe
  
  Those are normal units of measure for folks in the US. They actually should be called fluid ounces imperial to distinguish from the ounce weight.
  - AnthonyC
    
    A fluid ounce is the volume of water with a weight of one ounce, just as 1L of water weighs 1kg. “A pint a pound,” as the saying goes.
- AnthonyC
  
  1 oz ~ 30 mL
  1L = 33.8 oz
- daneyul
  
  64 ounces = 0.007936508 of a hogshead
  32 ounces = 21.333 jiggers
  20 ounces = 0.067 of a peck
  12 ounces = exactly 12 ponies
- Anonymous
  
  Sorry Dude, OZ (read ounce) is the standard liquid measure in the US. Where’s the confusion??????
Camp Freddie

Based on when I used to work at McDonaldsin the UK, I think it’s all about price. I remember being told that reg/med/large soft drinks cost about 1/2/3 pence each. They sold for something like 80p/Â£1/Â£120, so the markup was huge compared to anything else on the menu.

The thing is, while the extra drink doesn’t cost McDonalds anything, who would ever order a large coke when a small would get you 32oz?

I think the UK sizes are 0.25, 0.4 and 0.5 L, but I may be wrong.

Coffee in the UK is much worse, since we’ve gone straight to what I assume are US sizes in Starbucks/Costa/etc. It costs about 5% more to go from small to large. The small is equal to a large cofee mug full to the brim. The large is at least double the size and has two handle so you can lift it. Last time I checked, a hot liquid container with 2 handles = a cauldron.
Jack

Are people actually shocked that 40 oz. and 64 oz. drinks exist in the U.S.?

Go to a movie theater and the most normal sized drink is a â€œchildrenâ€™sâ€ sized drink. A â€œsmallâ€ is usually around 20 oz. or so I think?

The thing is the most nefarious change is the subtle shift from 16 oz. bottles to 20 oz. bottles. That small 4 oz. difference makes all the difference in the world.
Jordan

Just for reference, the average adult human bladder can hold between 16 and 32 fl.oz. (Wikipedia).
Zadaz

Yes, most people outside of the US are shocked that a common unit of personal beverage is 64 oz. (Which is nearly 2 liters for foreigners in countries where conversion charts don’t exist.) It’s a great joy taking foreign friends to a convenience store and see their reaction.

It’s constantly reinforced that giving up soda was one of the best things I have ever done.
Antinous / Moderator

Get it home in the car? Don’t they just swill it at the counter, belch loudly and hand the empty tub to the cashier?
- Anonymous
  
  From what I’ve heard, they bubble, slurp and gurgle it throughout the entire movie.
Anonymous

It’s the American way!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75091497@N00/2809230657/
Hagrid

It’s not unheard of for me to drink 4-6L of cola in a day.
- jackie31337
  
  I drink about that much water in a day, but with cola costing more per liter than gasoline, I drink cola (and really, anything other than water) very rarely.
- Donald Petersen
  
  It’s not unheard of for me to drink 4-6L of cola in a day.
  
  …and close to a gallon of butterbeer? ;^) It’s all relative, though, isn’t it? Just ask Peregrin Took.
  
  I’m kinda surprised y’all are surprised about the volume of sodee-pop Americans can drink nowadays. As others have pointed out, 7-Eleven’s 32-oz Big Gulp has been around for a generation, the 44-oz Super Big Gulp (my personal choice from junior high school up until my thirties) for almost as long, and the 1/2 gallon Double Gulp for over twenty years. Now I found out there’s even a full gallon Team Gulp, which sounds as if it’s meant for several drinkers, but you know there are some thirsty folks who get ‘em just for themselves.
  
  Gross? Well, depends a bit upon what you fill it with. In my fast-metabolism youth I’d sometimes drink a Double Gulp (or equivalent) over the course of a hot afternoon, usually Mountain Dew or Cherry Pepsi or even Root Beer. On really hot, busy days I could drink two. And by the time I was 25, I was still 6’2″, 140lbs, and still had all my teeth with no caries. And suburban Southern California has always been littered with 7-Elevens. There were two near my high school that were no more than 200 yards apart, yet both are still in business today.
  
  Can’t do it no mo’, however. I still drink too much of the stuff, though a fraction of what I used to. And I weigh nearly 200 today.
  
  But anyway it never felt particularly gross to me. I was always thirsty, and I’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth.
ElfSternberg

The common 7-11 sizes are:

Big Gulp: 32 US fl oz
Super Big Gulp: 44 US fl oz
Double Gulp: 64 US fl oz.

And did you know there was a “Gulp?” I didn’t until recently, when I spotted one. 20 US fl oz. I don’t think they know how to sell less than that.

When was the last time you saw single cans, and not a 20 oz bottle, of pop for sale? Most of the machines deliver 20 oz bottles these days.

Oddly, “Big Gulp” and up are trademarked, but “Gulp” is not.
corestrength

A) I love Sociological Images and thanks Cory for reminding me to visit there more often.

B) It would be great to read some anthropological data about those 64 oz drinks. How long do people typically take to finish one? Do they actually finish it or through part away when it gets too warm? How much is consumed at home or are they more for social outings?

C) I recently moved from the US to Australia. The average can size is 12 ounces. But all the soda here is sugar (sucrose) sweetened rather than fructose sweetened. I wonder if the sugar limits intake in comparison.
- HerkyDerky
  
  Corestrength, I was in high school in 1988 when the 64 oz Double Gulp was introduced. Between two-a-days (morning and afternoon football practice) I would go to 7-11 and drink an entire 64 oz Gatorade in something like 10 minutes. This would go on for 2 weeks, until we went down to just one practice.
  
  I had 9% body fat. (Now I’m a vegetarian, never drink soda, and fat… go figure.)
  
  I think I got the 44oz a few times (with soda) until I spilled it in my lap while driving. I would drink the thing before it got ever remotely warm, and I think I would get very little ice to maximize drinkage. It was never for a social occassion — the idea was to drink it when you needed it — NOW!
  
  Looking back, it all seems kind of gross.
sillygolem

One of the local convenience stores has drink cups up to 64oz, but their mugs go up to 100 oz, or nearly 3 liters. Keep in mind that the standard size for soda that you buy at the grocery store to drink through the week here is 2 liters.
macmichael

Don’t forget the KFC bucket o’ cola.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachsdame/2851075133/
fnc

Take it from someone who lives with a -serious- sweet tooth, if you get soda made with real sugar you require a lot less to get your sweet fix. I stocked up on the Dr. Pepper made with sugar when they made a batch for their 125th anniversary recently and one 12 oz. can leaves you feeling quite satisfied. Which, I guess explains a lot about why they make soda like they do nowadays.

And now I want some Long John Silver’s. Yarr!
- princessalex
  
  If you really love Dr. Pepper — the kind made with suger, instead of HFCS — visit Dublin Dr. Pepper. We get a case shipped on our anniversary each year! :-)
Teapunk

Seriously, American portion sizes is something I always marvel at when I’m in the US. The supermarkets are only so huge because everything is huge – who needs these gigantic bags of crisps or cookies?
Or these huge soft drinks?
In Germany people sometimes on special occasions drink beer in a one liter (32 fl.oz.) “stein” (MaÃŸkrug), but that’s not for take-out and you usually drink it sitting down before toppling over slowly.
But it’s not the standard way to consume beer and I haven’t done this since ages.
These huge soft drinks on the other hand seem to be more or less standard.
- devophill
  
  In Germany people sometimes on special occasions drink beer in a one liter (32 fl.oz.) “stein” (MaÃŸkrug), but that’s not for take-out and you usually drink it sitting down before toppling over slowly.
  
  Because they are not over-consuming Americans, I assume they only drink beer one MaÃŸ at a time? And then go home to sleep it off, surely? Only Americans would consume MaÃŸ, I’m sorry, I meant mass quantities, possibly in some sort of hall or tent?
  
  /sarcasm
  
  (by “special occasions”, do you mean the second half of September?)
  - capl
    
    7oz = KÃ¶lsch
    10oz = Pils
    17oz = WeiÃŸbier
    34oz = Festbier
    
    ;)
dr

Yet if you go out for breakfast, orange juice is still served in thimbles.
- Anonymous
  
  Special occasions? Way back in 1982 the Munich beergarden in the main park sold beer only in 1L steins. Yum.
  
  Please don’t overdo the Eurorevisionism.
  
  See the 1L steins in the photo:
  http://www.destination-munich.com/seehaus.html
NorhillJohn

There’s regional variation within the US, as well. When I moved from the east coast to Texas I noticed that restaurant portions were generally larger. I’m probably the only person who’s ever complained at one of my local restaurants that the portions are too big; I’m a bit disgusted by the waste because nobody seems to be able to finish their meals. They serve a salad that comes in what appears to be a fruit bowl – it reminds me of what my mother used to serve salad for the entire family at dinnertime when i was young.

When I’m in other parts of the US I notice somewhat more sensible portions being served.
Frescard

Just because an ad in the Fifties claims that you can get “two full glasses” out of a “king size” 12oz can, that doesn’t necessarily make it so…
Advertising back then wasn’t any less prone to hyperbole than it is now; and even 50 years ago nobody would’ve considered 6oz a “full glass” (even single-serving Coke bottles were 10 or 12oz at that time).
Sork

20 fl oz = 60 cl
32 fl oz = 100 cl
44 fl oz = 130 cl
64 fl oz = 190 cl
Anonymous

one of the summers that i worked construction i used to drink a 64oz. gulp throughout the day. sweat so much that i never urinated. might not have been good for my kidneys, but i never felt more healthy with all the manual labor i was putting in.

now i sit at a computer and drink 2 cups of coffee a day and sweat nothing.
Anonymous

it’s the one reason i like starbucks, ask for “short” – it is actually a small size, the way small should be. i use to travel a lot to the states and i could count on starbucks for providing me a small beverage. sadly they don’t advertise “short” on the drink menu or cup display.
chgoliz

“I am actually curious how a person gets it home in their car, as I don’t see how it would fit in a standard cup holder. Perhaps you buckle it into an empty seat?”

On the off-chance that it wasn’t a rhetorical question, I’ll answer: the cups are two-tiered, with a smaller (normal) sized bottom ring that fits in car cup holders. Also, some cars now advertise that their cup holders are bigger, to better hold these mammoth takeaway cups.

Having never actually drunk one of these things, I’m speaking from the experience of having seen the cups in other people’s cars. (There seems to be a lot of eating and drinking in cars these days.)
Anonymous

Of course, these guys realized that the beverage in the cup cost less to supply than the actual cup ‘hardware’, so the profit margin on the larger sizes goes _up_ as you increase the size, at least when it comes to fountain sodas.. Thus the rise of self-serve fountains in fast-food restaurants: cheaper and faster to sell the cup and let folks do the labor than tie up your employees to fill the cups..
Anonymous

Everyone is focusing on calories.

Are people more “hydrated” now ??

I don’t remember drinking 64 oz in a whole day in 1965.

Are we sure that water doesn’t make you fat ??
Alan

I worked a burger joint in high school, circa 1980. Small soda cup was 12 oz, medium was 16 and the large was 20. We sold lots of mediums, and probably more smalls than larges. But also back then you didn’t see every other person walking around with a beverage in hand, and cars rarely had cup-holders.

Oh, and we had 2 oz burger patties, and that was normal. Maybe 10% of our burger sales were for double patty, a whopping 4 oz of ground round!

Face it, today we are pigs.
Anonymous

No wonder America’s kings have gotten so fat…
Anonymous

Years ago, Coca Cola came in 6-ounce glass bottles. Competitor Pepsi Cola trumped Coke by doubling its serving size (“Pepsi Cola hits the spot/12 full ounces, that’s a lot!”). Things haven’t changed that much.

But who on earth can put away 64 ounces of soda pop in one sitting? That’s a bit les than a supermarket-style 2-liter bottle (why are netric measurements found nowhere else in America but laboratories, foreign car garages and the soda pop aisle of the supermarket?).
Stefan Jones

Back in the late 60s/early 70s, my family occasionally visited friends in Ontario.

Soda cans held 10 oz. It seemed a lot more reasonable a size for a kid to tackle.

* * *

One of my favorite lines from Stephenson’s Anathem is a description of a group of visitors to the “concent” (kind of a Science Monastery). These visitors are young male slobs. Stephenson describes them as overweight, wearing sports jerseys, and drinking from “buckets of sugar water.”

He has us nailed.
Anonymous

Well the modern American trend of consuming mass quantities was brough over from France, by the coneheads.
nixiebunny

A 12 ounce can of cola can be too much for me to drink in one sitting.

When visiting a standard American restaurant, my family typically shares one order of fries and one soda between 3 or 4 people, and we often split menu items between two people.

A person can insert several straws into a soda lid, using the Swiss Army knife that one keeps in one’s pocket at all times to make extra cross-sliced holes.
secretlab

Adult-onset diabetes is a ubiquitous part of American culture now, so this massive upsizing works as both a cause and a symptom.
Anonymous

easy fix: drink water! I can’t remember the last time I bought soda in a cup – occasionally tea in a bottle (and those bottles are also too big. Especially if there’s no bathroom nearby).
Promethean Sky

Of course American portions are huge! It takes a lot of calories to be this awesome! We’re the biggest and the best, and if you don’t agree, we’ll sit on you.
Anonymous

One of the reasons gastric bands don’t work in the US as well as they do in Europe is that Americans get more calories from liquids than our Continental cousins.

The 64oz does have a use. My wife has a refillable mug, so it only costs 89 cents to fill. She fills it with diet Mountain Dew (a liquid paradox, especially the caffeine free version) and drinks from it all day. She’s often at work from 6:30 AM to 5:30 PM, doesn’t have time for lunch (she’s a teacher), so it works well.

However, we can’t wait to use it for nefarious purposes. Great travel tip: if you go to some all inclusive place (boring, but the booze makes up for it), try this: Take an insulated mug. A big one. They don’t really care what they fill. 4 little plastic cups or one big container. Now you can just veg out on the beach and pretend you are saving the world by not wasting cups.
Anonymous

In my mom’s day, Pepsi’s jingle was:
“Twelve full ounces, that’s alot!
That’s what Pepsi Cola’s got!”
Bryan3000000

The way they tend to fill cups with ice these days, I would say the 32, 44, and 64 ounce sizes would give you 3, 4, and 5 ounces of a soft drink, respectively. It’s pretty sad when you order a large drink and it’s gone after you swallow twice, left with a cup that’s still completely full of ice. This is only one of the many reasons why drive-throughs suck.
james4765

I actually loved the 64 ounce sodas during the summer – fill it with diet soda or iced tea, and I would hydrate before working in the shop, where it got to be about 120 degrees in high summer (48 C for those across the pond). I would then drink at least one more from the Gatorade thermos we constantly kept filled. We also kept salt tablets around, but the Gatorade did a pretty good job.

I don’t do that anymore, since I stopped working in that kind of heat.
HC66

The only thing I’m buckling into an empty seat is a growler of beer from the local brewery.
Wendy Blackheart

I was on a road trip with friends 2 years ago. We stopped at a rest stop to eat, and my friend, the driver, got SO excited when he saw the bucket of cola (as we called it) that you could get. This thing was *massive*. It had to be a gallon of soda, plus ice. I think he had that thing for the next 2 hours of the drive. Eurgh. Then he had a giant tub to get rid of – the idea, I guess, was that you save the bucket for later.

There is also a deli in Jersey, Harold’s, that I’ve been to, that serves massive food. They have a 32oz milkshake – there were 4 of us there, and we got 2 sandwiches and a knish, and there were leftovers. I didn’t know how big things were, so I ordered my sandwich like at a real deli – roast beef, salad, tomato, cheese and, oh, fried onions. They brought us HALF A HEAD of salad, 2 big tomatoes, at least 1/2lbs of cheese and a huge plate of onions. Oh, and there was a sandwich in there – something like 1lbs of meat on bread. I was *high* during this meal, and scared of the food. We ate that thing the rest of the weekend, my boyfriend and I, (we were at a convention) and we *still* had leftovers to throw away. It was gross. They have like, pallets of cake and pancakes the size of pizzas (The guy next to us wasn’t sure how many pancakes to get, since he was hungry. He had never eaten there either. He got one, and ate about one conventional pizza slice of it, and then the rest of it went to waste, because who needs that much pancake?!
hbl

What is more staggering for me (aside from the US clinging to the imperial system) is that in the 50s there were cola brands other than Coke and Pepsi. Royal Crown Cola? Who knew?
- Anonymous
  
  Customary measure, not Imperial. The American fl oz is slightly larger, than the Imperial fl oz. The American fl oz is 1/128th of an American gallon (nee Queen Anne’s wine gallon). We never really cottoned to that new-fangled steam powered imperial gallon, or the fluid ounce that is 1/160th of it.
- Anonymous
  
  RC (Royal Crown) Cola is still being made, it appears. In terms of visibility, it was going strong into the 80′s, maybe even 90′s. In the Southeast (where RC, Coke and Pepsi were created), there were a lot of regional soda manufacturers, and you can still find them when you’re lucky. I especially recommend Cheerwine from North Carolina (non-alcholic, kindof similar to Cherry Coke), and Nitro (origion unknown and apparently unGoogleable, but this was kind of a predecessor to Red Bull with extremely high caffeine levels).