ARE TAKEOUT CONTAINERS GETTING SMALLER OR AM I JUST MORE HUNGRY?

Gus Turfrye is crying foul after noticing a change in his usual Chinese food takeout order.

The food was fine, he said, but there was something very different about the containers.

“They were plastic!” the local man said, clearly still in shock after a lifetime of eating takeout from aluminum containers.

Mr. Turfrye immediately contacted the SP iTeam investigative unit, which rushed to his Brighton dale-Rose hampton townhouse near the Mews at Vista-Pointe.

Reporter Leo Jefferson confirmed the man’s findings.

“The containers were, indeed, plastic. We noticed that right away, because we are observant,” he said.

The containers were described as rectangular with black bottoms and clear plastic lids.

“At first I thought, ‘Cool!’ ” said Mr. Turfrye, 38. “I mean, they’re microwaveable and they look tough enough to get a couple months’ use out of.”

However, the man’s warm feelings of thriftiness proved fleeting.

“I stopped eating sooner,” he said. “I had to — I ran out of food.”

Something was amiss. There weren’t as many cubes of sweet and sour pork to fork. In the main, there was less chow mein. Aside from the fortune cookie, there were no leftovers left over, which was unfortunate.

“It’s a good thing I was sitting because it hit me all at once,” Mr. Turfrye said: “THE NEW PLASTIC CONTAINERS ARE SMALLER THAN THE OLD ALUMINUM ONES!”

The SP iTeam quickly went to work on the story. They found an old rectangular aluminum takeout dish from the same restaurant and compared it to the new plastic container. At a glance, there didn’t seem to be much difference.

That’s when the iTeam had a bolt of inspiration, the same kind that inspired its award-winning series, How Much Cream is in Your Creamsicle?”

“We decided to measure,” the reporter said.

They filled each container with water. The old aluminum one held 2.5 cups. The plastic, only 2 cups.

“That’s a half cup less,” said Jefferson. “If I could do percentages and stuff, I’d say that’s between 25 and 2,500 per cent smaller.”

According to experts, container sizes are getting smaller all the time in a process called “shrinkflation.” Cans hold less. There are fewer sheets of toilet paper on a roll. Packages are lighter. Yet the prices remain the same, or go up.

“According to the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics, 2,529 products on supermarket shelves decreased in size or weight in the five years between 2012 and 2017,” London-based expert on weights and measures Nigel Sterling said in a trustworthy British accent, reading from a recent article in The Economist.

For consumers like Gus Turfrye, the trend started decades ago.

“When I was a kid, we had this chocolate bar called the Cuban Lunch. It was about four inches thick and you needed a friend to help carry it.”

Turfrye claims the delicious confection got smaller and smaller until one day it disappeared mysteriously. Similarly, it’s not known if Cubans ate the Cuban Lunch for lunch.

Mr. Turfrye plans to start a petition to bring back the large aluminum container.

“But right now I’m too weak to get off the couch.”

The SP iTeam said it was unable to contact the restaurant in question.

“We’re ending the investigation,” said Jefferson, who left quickly for lunch.

Later that day, a new plastic container was seen in the newsroom fridge.

“That’s not crispy ginger beef and you can’t prove it,” Jefferson said, brandishing a chopstick.