super sized

[Selkie]

Of course you don't have to clear off one's plate. But on a planet with limited resources, with babies and people starving all over the place, and habitat being destroyed to grow food for us, the thought of millions of americans throwing good food away kind of makes me sick. Best to not put it on the plate in the first place.

Give your doggy bag to a homeless person or just don't eat out.

[Biciclista]

Give your doggy bag to a homeless person or just don't eat out.

you clearly don't get it, do you. It's not about me. I have an efficient system (I take doggy bags) for meals. I'm talking about the revolting over consumption happening in this country. Me giving a doggy bag to a homeless person isn't going to change the way we waste and consume.

[Trek420]

you clearly don't get it, do you. It's not about me. I have an efficient system (I take doggy bags) for meals. I'm talking about the revolting over consumption happening in this country. Me giving a doggy bag to a homeless person isn't going to change the way we waste and consume.

I get it. I've always "got it". I was one of a group of kids who founded what was probably the first recycling center in Somoma county when I was in Jr. High and I'm 53. Do the math I've always got it that there is no "away" . But what is going to change it?

How do you get the message out that small is good? Is it enough to talk diet and portion control or greener choices? Is it enough that lots of us are living simply and well and looking fabulous when you have corporations such as fast food running ads making it seem that they are the friend of the poor and harried busy people with mega portions for less.

The perfect heirloom tomato or the local gelato shop doesn't have a budget for a Superbowl ad. So how do you get the message out?

[Softie]

It is really sad that every meal served needs to be huge. Also, I personally think the ingredients in most of them are designed to prompt you to eat and crave even more, not feel better. Now days, healthy food is considered specialty food, and supposedly healthy alternatives at quick easy restaurants include things like salads with half your daily calorie intake! When it comes to a lot of whole grains and items without sugar or chemicals added, I find it's way more expensive for less processed and artificial foods, than a box of the usual unhealthy mainstream choice (e.g. a whole grain cereal with nuts and very little added sugar).

It's a pretty shocking reflection about the food views in our societies that, healthy foods, foods with reasonable fat or calorie content, reduced portion, or low sodium, is specialty food, light sized, diet food, or viewed as for people who already have diabeties/heart disease/obeasity/etc!

[crazycanuck]

One can always make a full meal & freeze the other half...oooo genius

Ian remembered something about a meal we asked for when we were in Canada or the US.. He just wanted a ham sandwich. Period. Do you think we could get it through to the servers etc that we didn't want chips or salad with it? Also, he didn't want butter etc on the sandwich...confused the poor folks..

I'm still shocked at the portion sizes in the US..Then again, we only eat out at our favourite Japenese place & wouldn't have a clue about the portion sizes elsewhere.

When we were younger we had to eat our veggies. Period. I remember not being allowed to drink more than one glass of milk at the table & having a timer because we'd just fiddle faddle around ignoring the food. I still say blech to brussel sprouts. UGH...

[Selkie]

you clearly don't get it, do you. It's not about me. I have an efficient system (I take doggy bags) for meals. I'm talking about the revolting over consumption happening in this country. Me giving a doggy bag to a homeless person isn't going to change the way we waste and consume.

Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Mimi. I don't appreciate your comment. Don't you think we can agree to disagree about this?

While I agree with you about over consumption, I believe that change starts with oneself and greed/over-consumption is not limited to the US (example, China's oil consumption & pollution). Griping about it isn't going to solve anything.

I try not to judge others or their choices, opinions, etc.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I think everyone basically agrees about this issue of over-consumption and waste. We all have slightly different takes on the solutions.
There is no need for us to get testy with each other. Maybe our wording sounds harsher than we intend it sometimes. In the end, we're pretty much on the same team, so hopefully we can let the arguing part just drop and move forward?

Personally, I see it both ways- I don't like that restaurants serve such big wasteful portions and I wish they'd cut it out/on the other hand I do enjoy having a second meal out of it the next day- like I'm getting two for one. But I think portions are just too damned big overall. Obesity is a real problem, especially for young people getting trained to eat gross amounts of high calorie/fat food.

[Susan Otcenas]

In my mid-twenties, I lived in Japan for 2 years. When I returned to the US, one of the things that astonished me was how GIGANTIC portion sizes in US restaurants were/are, compared to what they are in Japan. Food comes on ginormous platters. Properly sized dinner plates seem to have gone the way of the dodo.

As a child, I was not permitted to leave the dinner table until I ate what was served to me. (Of course, portions were reasonable child-sized amounts. The idea was that I couldn't get out of eating my veggies.) But one of the consequences of that is that I feel this huge sense of guilt about leaving uneaten food on my plate. (I can still hear my father giving me the "there are starving children in Africa" lecture while I stared at some vegetable I should have been grateful to have on my plate.)

I think many of us were raised this way, and that's one reason that as the portion sizes have grown larger, we've all just continued to tuck into it until the plate is clean.

No wonder so many of us are overweight!

I abhor wasting food. I also abhorred being overweight. So now I split my meal into 2 portions as soon as it arrives at the table (I request a "to go" box be delivered along with the meal.) I eat the leftovers as another meal the next day.

Unfortunately, many many people do not get to go boxes for the extra food, and the result is that an incredible amount of food (along with all the resources and energy required to product it) is pitched in the trash. It really is a tragedy.

Susan

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Food comes on ginormous platters. Properly sized dinner plates seem to have gone the way of the dodo.

Dinner plates are the new saucers.

[Biciclista]

and tea cups are bigger than the cereal bowls I ate out of as a child!

[Pax]

Susan - my father spent most of my childhood in SE Asia and saw those starving children first hand, so I know what you mean about never being permitted to leave food on your plate.

Like many here I abhor wasting food when so many on earth go without. My SO and I are trying to get in the habit of sharing meals in restaurants, ordering a single entree and asking for a separate plate. Some places will charge us a "plate fee" and I can understand their position...but what they really need to do is make the portions smaller in the first place.

If I understand the stats correctly, Americans eat out much more than most other countries, seems like the restaurants could do a big service in stopping obesity by sub sizing instead of super sizing.

[Biciclista]

It was a happy day for me the day I discovered that I was allowed to eat the "senior meals" at some restaurants even when I wasn't a senior.

[OakLeaf]

My SO and I are trying to get in the habit of sharing meals in restaurants, ordering a single entree and asking for a separate plate. Some places will charge us a "plate fee" and I can understand their position...but what they really need to do is make the portions smaller in the first place.

If it's just me and my SO, we don't even ask for an extra plate. We're not shy about sticking our forks into the same piece of food.

If it was me and a friend OTOH, I probably would.

[Veronica]

"there are starving children in Africa"
Susan

I was the smart alec kid who said, "Fine, box up that liver and ship it to them." It never did get me out of eating the liver.

Veronica

[Susan Otcenas]

I was the smart alec kid who said, "Fine, box up that liver and ship it to them." It never did get me out of eating the liver.

Veronica

Yeah, didn't work in my house either.