The Washington Post has a great article about the history of super-sizing. Back in the 80s fast-food franchises discovered that lowering the price of food caused people to actually buy more food. Everybody started doing this, and after prices were as low as they could go McDonald\’s introduced super-sizing, where they provided more food for a small price increase. The food itself was very cheap to produce, so the extra money they charged was almost pure profit. The article explains it better:

Here\’s how it works. Let\’s say a $1.25 bag of French fries costs $1 to produce. The potatoes, oil and salt account for only 20 cents of the cost. The other 80 cents goes toward all the other expenses. If you add half again as many French fries to the bag and sell it for $1.50, the non-food expenses stay pretty much constant, while the extra food costs the franchise only 10 more pennies. The fast-food joint makes an extra 15 cents in pure profit, and the customer thinks he\’s getting a good deal. And he would be, if he actually needed the extra food, which he doesn\’t because the nation is awash in excess calories.

The article also mentions the steadily increasing portion sizes in this country. Americans eat more and more because we\’ve been trained to believe big portions are normal. Very interesting stuff.