A 3-pound tub of Country Crock margarine used to contain, well, 3 pounds of margarine. But look at what Mouse Print found. The old 3-pound tub now contains 2 pounds, 13 ounces.

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Mouse Print asked the company what happened and got this response:

Unilever Foods takes great pride in offering the highest quality products at reasonable and fair prices, and we apologize for the inconvenience our recent packaging change has caused.

In order to maintain price, we have reduced the size of the container for several reasons:

- Increased costs of raw materials, including ingredients and packaging materials
- Transition to trans fat-free products
- Tamper-resistant containers

I highly suspect that if you shopped around, you would find that food costs are pushing companies to do this a lot. Mouse Print says bath-sized soap used to be 5 ounces and now is 4.5 ounces. Some bars are even as small as 4 ounces.

At the same time, restaurants are really feeling the pinch of rising costs. WFAA-TV in Dallas says some restaurants have reprinted menus, putting the most profitable items where diners read first.

There are other sneaky tricks, according to WFAA:

Other restaurants are quietly shrinking their portions and using old standby tricks like smaller plates and heavier forks to make it seem like there's more food.

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