Recommended daily intake

Ever calculated the recommended daily intake percentage of butter and/or sugar per slice of a cake you've just baked? It's surprisingly easy to do (says someone who thinks Latin literally makes more sense than numbers). And I promise it'll scare the shit out of you. You'll spend the next twenty-four hours trying to rationalise the intake: "I don't bake cakes every week," "I don't eat cake for breakfast, lunch and tea," "It's only a guide?" "It doesn't matter if my tummy wobbles, I am a confident, self-empowered woman- oh crap."

Yes sirree. The first time I noticed the percentage of recommended daily intake (or %DI for the label savvy) was on a packet of scotch-finger biscuits about four months ago… I've eaten less than a handful of scotch-fingers since then, the saturated fat being a whopping 19%DI… that's per biscuit! Ouch.

Normally I wouldn't be the sort of girl to look at labels, but that one pulled me up, and unfortunately I've been looking ever since. Then for labels that only give grams per serving, I managed to work out how to calculate their percentage… Then, horror increasing my the moment, I calculated, per slice, a cake I had just made. A light chocolate cake. 75 grams of butter ÷ 8 = 9.3-ish grams per slice ÷ 24 (total %DI) = 39%. Dear god. A cake with 125g of butter… pretty basic, doesn't include icing… do the math… 65% DI saturated fat per slice.

See that body on the floor… that's me out cold.