If Only Our Eyes Were Bigger than Our Stomachs
We All Know Which Bowl Should Be Enough
I remember when I was a child that my parents always warned me against taking more food than I could possibly eat. They would say that my eyes were bigger than my stomach, meaning I’d want more than could possibly fit in my little tummy (in those days!) Unfortunately, as times have changed, and perhaps as our country has become more prosperous (current economic climate aside), we’ve been able to adjust our stomachs to accommodate the portion sizes our eyes have desired.
As reported at Beachbody.com, in the current issue of the “Annals of Internal Medicine” there are the results of a study that shows average portion sizes in cookbook recipes have increased with our stretching stomachs. Whereas portion sizes of recipes in the 1936 edition of the “Joy of Cooking” averaged 268 calories, in the 2006 edition of the same book, average recipe portions come in at 384 calories. You can’t blame the cookbooks for keeping up with current trends. Just look at the double and triple size portions we get at most restaurants. Not only have our stomachs grown larger, so have our eyes. In fact, they’re now running neck and neck.
If we want to lose weight, one of the easiest tricks nutritionists have been telling us for a while is to eat your meals from a smaller plate. The key here is not to shrink our portions so much as to shrink our perception of what a full meal should be. The good news is that if we follow this advice, we can look forward to leftovers when we cook these larger size recipes. Cook once, eat twice, further motivation for shrinking both our eyes and our stomachs.
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