European integrationists enrage British grocery shoppers

Riddle of the day: where might a single bread roll not be considered a roll of bread?

In Europe, where a new rule outlaws the labeling of foodstuffs by their number and instead replaces them with labels by weight. No longer will eggs be sold by the dozen, or rolls in packages of six. From now on, you’ll be getting 636 grams of egg for every carton, and 500 grams of roll in a bag of baked, fluffy carbohydrates. Not surprisingly, the law is raising heckles in staunchly anti-European Britain, and some predict that this episode could force Prime Minister David Cameron to fulfill his campaign pledge to stand up to Europe.

Whatever your position on European integration, it’s hard to see how the rule on food labels helps anybody make better consumer choices. Maybe this is one of those things that works out over time, but right now, thinking of one egg as 53 (or 57, or 68) grams makes about as much sense to me as using "one beef" to describe variable helpings of steak.