Getting over the cultural teaching that I must eat everything that is served in that sitting was the KEY to my weight loss, personally. I had no real dietary changes. I found that if I just ate slower and stopped when I felt satisfied most meals were nearly twice the size they needed to be. Another upside of this is it is cost effective to grab lunch and have the left overs for dinner (or the reverse)
Agreed. I now try to stop eating the instant I feel the slightest desire to stop. It seems to me that I've been programmed to ignore this impulse.
This is especially true of America where portion sizes are gigantic and people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers. It is amazing to me how much Americans will complain if a restaurant offers portion sizes just a little bit smaller than other restaurants in the area, even if the quality is much higher.
"people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers"
I suspect changing this attitude, more even than the promotion of local/organic/sustainable food production, could be the biggest social benefit of the foodie movement.
It is interesting how popular media plays into this. On a Food Network's chef competition on chef made a typical "American" size portion for one of the dishes. The judges really didn't like that.
On the other hand typical American restaurants often insert sarcastic lines in their TV ads about how our portions are nothing like "French" portions -- you really get a bang for your buck when you eat here.
So it seems like there are 2 very different attitudes and 2 very different types of consumers. Both are catered to by different types of businesses.
I think the portion size has also been a hint as to how much a person should be eating. Those have been used more by the food processing industry to "mask" the caloric content of their products, rather than by consumers to modulate their food intake appropriately.
A big problem with food in America is that High Fructose Corn Syrup is spiked in almost everything frozen and canned foods these days (sure, you may avoid it at home - but not all restaurants are treated equal). The biggest problem with HFCS is eating satiety (or feeling of fullness) is offset considerably.
Comments
Getting over the cultural teaching that I must eat everything that is served in that sitting was the KEY to my weight loss, personally. I had no real dietary changes. I found that if I just ate slower and stopped when I felt satisfied most meals were nearly twice the size they needed to be. Another upside of this is it is cost effective to grab lunch and have the left overs for dinner (or the reverse)
Agreed. I now try to stop eating the instant I feel the slightest desire to stop. It seems to me that I've been programmed to ignore this impulse.
This is especially true of America where portion sizes are gigantic and people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers. It is amazing to me how much Americans will complain if a restaurant offers portion sizes just a little bit smaller than other restaurants in the area, even if the quality is much higher.
"people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers"
I suspect changing this attitude, more even than the promotion of local/organic/sustainable food production, could be the biggest social benefit of the foodie movement.
It is interesting how popular media plays into this. On a Food Network's chef competition on chef made a typical "American" size portion for one of the dishes. The judges really didn't like that.
On the other hand typical American restaurants often insert sarcastic lines in their TV ads about how our portions are nothing like "French" portions -- you really get a bang for your buck when you eat here.
So it seems like there are 2 very different attitudes and 2 very different types of consumers. Both are catered to by different types of businesses.
I think the portion size has also been a hint as to how much a person should be eating. Those have been used more by the food processing industry to "mask" the caloric content of their products, rather than by consumers to modulate their food intake appropriately.
A big problem with food in America is that High Fructose Corn Syrup is spiked in almost everything frozen and canned foods these days (sure, you may avoid it at home - but not all restaurants are treated equal). The biggest problem with HFCS is eating satiety (or feeling of fullness) is offset considerably.