Whilst out
for a recent family meal, I couldn’t help remarking (once again) on the huge
size of some of the platefuls of food that were being served.
It seems
that many restaurants (especially pub/restaurants) serve massive portions of
food that are far larger than appear in any ‘recommended intake’ guidelines for
the average person.
When faced
with such a plateful, many people just shrug and say, “It’s a shame to waste
it”, before polishing off the whole lot, even if they find themselves rubbing
their bellies in discomfort as a result.
Personally
these over-large portion sizes have the effect of putting me off of my meal.
I’m not a particularly large eater, so a plate that’s piled high just makes me
groan. In some places I think I’d fare better with the children’s portions.
Those who
do manage to clear their plates often only eat out on rare occasions, so
supposedly the odd ‘blow-out’ won’t be a problem. However, if you eat out
regularly, or serve portions of this quantity at home, you could be doing
yourself more harm than good.
Think we need a bit more than this though |
All this
got me thinking about the size of the meals that we serve at home, and in some
ways more importantly, the size of our plates. I was sure that my current
dinner plates were larger than the ones I used some years back, so hunted at
the back of the cupboard for the remains of an old (bought over 25 years ago)
dinner service. Sure enough the dinner plates, side plates and dessert bowls
were all at least 1/3 smaller than the ones I now use.
The thing
is we tend to fill whatever plate size we have at our disposal, so to keep our
portion sizes under control, perhaps we should downsize our plates.
Psychologically, if we’ve eaten a whole plateful of food, we tell ourselves
we’ve had a big meal and are full.
So come
one, get out those smaller plates. What have you got to lose? Those annoying extra
pounds, that’s what!
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me on Twitter @shoppersjoy
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