Food Portion Size
All the world’s a feast
Belly up to the buffet table and have another plateful
HARRY BRUCE | 6:23 AM
RESTAURANT MEALS Food Portion Sizes have grown so monstrous I often leave on my plate a morass of pasta, a drumlin of french fries, or a sticky swamp of orange nacho sauce. Before hauling my garbage away, my server looks at me with disbelief.
For I have just rejected half of a "normal" serving. Once upon a time, it would have been Our Super Duper Jumbo Feast, or maybe The Giant-Sized Lumberjack’s Special, but now it’s just another "regular" meal.
"In the mid-1950s, McDonald’s offered only one size of french fries," New York University nutritionists Lisa Young and Marion Nestle reported in 2002. "That size is now considered ‘Small’ and is only one-third the weight of the largest size available in 2001."
Today’s "Large" weighs the same as the 1998 "Supersize," and the 2001 "Supersize" weighs nearly an ounce more.
For decades, not only McDonald’s but all kinds of restaurants across North America have been training tens of millions of us not only to eat ever-bigger servings, but to expect them as a right. The dining out industry well knows that the bigger the portions they offer, the more food their customers will gobble.
Barbara Rolls, a nutritionist at Pennsylvania State University, recently reported that extensive tests by her and her research colleagues proved that "larger food portion sizes of macaroni and cheese, submarine sandwiches and potato chips all lead to greater intake — as much as 50 per cent or more.
"When we upped the food portion size of a popular pasta dish at a campus restaurant, customers ate almost 200 extra calories. Yet they believed that each serving was the right size. Whether the customers were men, women, lean, overweight, habitual plate-cleaners or not, they succumbed to the influence of large portions."
Most of the 300 chefs who participated in a survey last year admitted their pasta food portion sizes were anywhere from three to four times the size of the half cup that the U. S. government recommended, but felt no responsibility for the epidemic of overeating that’s afflicting North America.
Regardless of how huge the food portion size was, the customer had to decide how much of it to eat. Sixty per cent said they routinely dished up steaks that weighed 12 or more ounces. Again, that’s three to four times the food portion size health authorities recommend.
Some New York restaurants serve Porterhouse steaks, for one person, that weigh 24 ounces. Can you imagine swallowing a slab of beef, no matter how tender, as big as the mitt worn by the Yankees’ catcher?
Canadian nutritionist Rena Mendelson points out that at many lower-priced, chain restaurants, "You can get breakfast — that’s three eggs, four pancakes, five slices of bacon, hash brown potatoes, maybe a cup of hash brown potatoes – all for $1.99."
Since the cost of this food is low, the restaurant actually earns a profit on it, but, as Mendelson warns, "That’s enough food for a day."
Maybe for her, but not for the guy who’ll then have for lunch a Big Mac, a large order of fries, and a large vanilla shake, and thereby consume more than the 2,000 calories an average person needs for another entire day.
After that, he can hardly wait for dinner. Pizza anyone? And how about coconut cream pie for dessert?
Maybe I’m out of date. After all, the Globe and Mail reports that "super-sized portions are falling out of fashion with diners everywhere, from gourmet eateries to fast-food chains." A decision by the chef at the University Club in Montreal, however, suggests the fall from fashion is less than dramatic: "A 14-ounce sirloin became a nine-ounce minute steak and, instead of apple pie, diners could order an open-faced apple tart, cut into 10 servings instead of eight."
When a dining room offers a nine-ounce steak as a solution to overeating, I fear we’re not facing certain realities.
Here’s one reality. So many folks in Tulsa, Okla., have grown too huge for ambulances to handle that firefighters routinely provide "lift assists" to those who have fallen down but can’t get up. One of the firefighter’s special tools for such jobs, the Mega Mover, can lift patients who weigh as much as 1,500 pounds.
"Transporting a patient who weighs over 700 pounds is not something you do every day," said Tina Wells of the Emergency Medical Services Authority, "but you do it more and more. You do it every other week, just about."
Bon appétit!
Harry Bruce has won the battle of the bulge.
Food Portion Size