The problem servings: Why we eat too much
Miscellaneous / / December 19, 2019
Crockery becomes larger. Food portions are getting bigger. We eat much more than is required to satisfy hunger. This is beneficial for food manufacturers, but is extremely harmful for health. Obviously, we have to learn how to determine how much food is optimal. Let's talk about how to do this.
If you want to see how swollen steel portions of food, do not go to the supermarket, go to the antique shop. There you can find a tiny cup, specially designed to be a doll. Nevertheless, he is called "wine glass". How is it that a small platter turned into a large dinner plate? Before dinner plates looked like a saucer.
Returning to his contemporary cuisine, you'll see how everything became more. Diameter of 28 centimeters has become the norm for a dinner plate, which in 1950 would be 25 centimeters. Of course, the fact that we eat dishes of impressive size, does not necessarily mean that we eat more than you need. But usually it is exactly what happens.
Psychologist Vansink Brian (Brian Wansink), author of "Mindless eating: why we eat more than it seems" proven in numerous experiments: you can rely on your sense of proportion, but the large size dishes are likely to cause you to eat larger portions food. Large spoon for ice cream you take more ice cream. In short wide glass nalote more juice.
This contrasting size illusion: in comparison with the large dishes it seems as if the contents are not so many, and we consume the same amount of food as usual. The main danger of such "kitchen traps" - the fact that almost everyone in the world believes that it is not susceptible to it.
In fact, the only people immune to large portions - it's very small children. Up until three or four years, all children have the enviable ability to stop eating when they are full. Later, self-regulation of hunger disappears, and in some people it is impossible to learn it on their own. This cross-cultural phenomenon, which is observed from London to Beijing.
In one study, scientists from the US found that when three-year olds offer small, medium and large servings of macaroni and cheese, they always eat about the same amount. However, the five-year children eat a lot more when they are offered a large portion of pasta.
In a world where there is always the food, many of us have become like Alice in Wonderland - we are governed by the patties that say "Eat me", and bottles that say "Drink me." The trouble is that we have pushed more and more.
In 2013, the British fund to combat heart disease, has published a report entitled "Distortion servings" on how to change the size of the food in the UK since 1993. If then a regular muffin on average, weighed 85 grams, then 20 years later, he struggled to find muffins weighing at least 130 g Ready meals have also increased in size. For example, chicken pie increased by 49%, and shepherd's pie had almost doubled (from 210 to 400 g).
In such an environment it is difficult not to overeat, and it's not about willpower. Psychologists talk about cognitive bias - preference for holistic items. Anyone unknowingly wants to bring any matter to an end. With regard to food it is manifested most clearly: the greater portion of the food, the more you eat.
We think that is a portion of one part of something, regardless of its size. Even if it is a piece of pizza, containing 2000 calories, nutritionists who bought in New York. Just imagine, the daily rate of calories in a single bite to eat!
While serving in cafes and restaurants are gigantic, the recommended servings from the food basket incredibly small. For the majority of breakfast cereals the recommended serving size across the EU is '30 The recommended serving of cornflakes - only '17 For 16-year-old is just one sip. These tiny recommended serving sizes are suitable except for the children. Adults need a lot more.
When the study in 2013 in Southend and Birmingham adults were asked to fill a medium bowl, cereal, 88% of subjects poured more than '30 The average result - '44
Confusion with the serving size is largely due to the loss of culinary traditions. For example, the UK Ministry of Health states that an ideal serving of broccoli - two florets and cauliflower - eight. Agree, it's not like dinner. However, a survey conducted in South Korea among the elderly, showed a strong influence on food traditions. Almost all Koreans in the survey agreed that the portion of white rice should be an average of 75 grams, sweet potatoes - 120 g spinach - 40 g, and roasted sesame seeds - 1 Year
Without such general ideas, we remain in the power of the food industry. Due to the huge competition in the food companies, there are two probable strategy. The first - to sell smaller portions at higher prices. For example, the company Unilever has announced that the size of an ice cream Magnum and Cornetto will be reduced by one third (though, of course, the price of products has not declined by one-third).
The second approach is more common - to try to sell us more food. In 1988, you could buy chocolate from Cadbury Dairy Milk only one size - '54 Today you can buy a chocolate bar in 49 g, 110 g, 200 g and 360 g Compared with a truly giant bars of 360 grams is still a big 110-gram looks very modest.
Often at the end of dinner, when I ate, still I want something sweet. I found that if I will take a small deep bowl and put in it what I want - chocolate cake or halva - that is enough for me, even a small piece. When I did it the first time, I felt stupid. Really plate can trick me? Yes maybe. And you too.
Bi Wilson (Bee Wilson)
Author of books about food and nutrition, journalist
You think you can on the eye to determine the proper size of the portions? Check yourself. Here it will look like 200 calories in different foods on the plate. The photographs used in either a plate diameter of 26 cm or 16 cm diameter bowl.
Last year, researchers from the University of Cambridge, led by Theresa Marteau (Theresa Marteau) conducted an experiment in a local pub. Instead of conventional glasses (300 ml) was fed into the wine glasses larger (370 ml). Sales of wine in the standard portion 175 mL increased by 9%. Because of the large glasses of the people thought that they drink less than usual, so they drank the wine quickly.
The researchers hope that the government will listen to the results of similar experiments and will take measures to reduce the availability of larger quantities. However, the study itself caused the opposite effect: now this pub wine is always served in large glasses.
Jay Rayner (Jay Rayner): «I have no idea how to define the normal serving sizes"
My approach to the control of portions - entirely hereditary. I borrowed it from my parents. They grew up in poverty during the Second World War when food was in short supply. Therefore, when they are grown up and got the family table at home was always full. This was combined with a Jewish tradition to cook for guests more than you need, widespread even among those Jews who are not interested in religion and strange dietary rules. Somewhere in the DNA imprints that may come tomorrow Kossaksy and you'll have something to entertain them, and who knows, maybe, will be held by Rosenbaum, who also will have something to feed.
My mother believed that if only enough food at home for family members, so the food is not enough. And I feel a similar sensation. I freely admit that I have no idea how to define a normal serving size. When you need to cook a meal from the individual components, for example, each of the pork chop or filet Fish, I'm starting to get nervous - it makes no sense to train more than the number of those present people. I like when the serving size can be selected independently - when cooking, such as steamed vegetables, stews or pasta. You can be sure that part of the food remain intact. And if I could control myself well in the food, I could not get out to a restaurant critic.
In fairness, I note that in our family, everyone is working from the house, so nothing is wasted and the remains of yesterday's dinner are today's lunch from the refrigerator. Nevertheless, it is a bit annoying. I want to know how much to rice or pasta to cook dinner for four people. This was even written on the reverse side of the package. I pay attention to such things? Yes, I pay. But our fridge is always packed in small white bowls with the remains of yesterday's dinner. Someday I'll learn. Maybe.
Djizzak Erskine (Gizzi Erskine): «The feeling of satiety makes me feel better '
I love to entertain other people. And she is very like to eat, so you have to be careful when accepting guests at home. If I impose food myself and my boyfriend, I used to look at the plate and take yourself one where eating more. But even if I impose us the same way, it turns all the same very much. My boyfriend growth under two meters, but for me, although I am not high, it takes a lot of fuel (I have an active and a lot of running around).
When I eat at home, on my plate mainly whole grains, legumes and vegetables. I eat a lot of nuts, mostly cashew, plus one avocado a day. I also like tofu and tempeh, and there serving size does not matter. A couple of times a week, I eat fish, and every year less and less eat meat and dairy products. Once a week I do a Sunday roast from a large piece of meat or a whole chicken and then add residues in different dishes throughout the week. I calmly refer to the remainder of the food and just as calmly to deal with the portions. For example, if I make a stew, then part of the dish, I laid out on the packaging and send it in the freezer. But as a rule, I never leave food on the plate - I always eat up what has already been put on the plate, even if I feel that is about to bursting. The feeling of satiety makes me feel better.
Eating out - is a minefield. Friends come to stop me when I want to try different dishes and begin to destroy food with incredible speed. I never thought about how it will affect my weight or health, because in the end it is balanced by my house approach to nutrition. I wonder only about the use of alcohol, and that's it.
A couple of years ago I was seriously bummed to gain weight and I spent a lot of time to figure out how much you need to eat protein, carbohydrates and fats for that. Now a passion for it died away, but the habit remained BZHU considered.
Knowing how much protein and carbohydrate contained in a particular product, I am guided, how many grams of this product I have to eat. Previously, I just took a kitchen scale, measuring the number of raw and finished product. Now I'm on the eye determines the amount of certain foods that I should eat as part of a healthy diet.
However, if you omit the troubles with BZHU, then determine the size for yourself or your guests helps me a habit that developed a childhood, taken over from his mother. I was lucky in my family all perfectly cooked. Therefore, the ability to navigate in portions and the required number of products in my childhood.
I, like most people in childhood frighten phrases: "Throwing food - sin," "Eat with bread to make it more filling," "eat up, and then pour the collar", "Bread should be disposed of." Even though I allow myself now do not follow these psevdozapretam, the feeling that someone is starving in Africa, but I do not eat or throw food to me a little uncomfortable. I try to respect the food, but I think that it is better not to eat up, than to overeat.
I have a little snobbish attitude towards food, if it is not a home - then I can quite safely throw it. But home-cooked meal, cooked by me or relatives, rarely goes in the trash, even if it is still quite a bit or at the moment there do not want it. I think that then comes to help layfhakersky approach: always leftovers can be used in other dishes, for example.
Moreover, my body does not want and can not consume a lot of food. Sometimes the dinner has to be divided into two meals, because I was not able to eat all at once. I eat a little, and it is therefore very closely relate to what I eat. "You - what you eat" - the slogan with which I agree completely.
I prefer food prepared by me or by someone I trust. Therefore, I try to eat out only in the audited locations. Their little, but that they are especially valuable for me. To discover a new place with a kitchen, which I did not disappoint - a real Christmas. It is rare and requires a lot of effort, but it's worth it.
We did not buy the large plates, so they are usually placed portion, which is ideal to satisfy your hunger and not feel after that heaviness in the abdomen. Since I cook very often, I can almost immediately determine how much each of us is necessary. For the spaghetti we have a special dimensional plate with holes, but I'm always a bit deliberately reduces the number and add more sauce.
When guests come to dinner, the usual size portions - my two connected by hand. For men, a portion, usually 1.5 times more women. I usually try to spread the food in general and each dish takes itself as much as it sees fit.
Another very important point: we all (me, my husband and child) is very active in sports, so we eat a lot. Also we have to prepare a lot of different sports snacks. Often in the morning or before exercise need a lot of fast carbohydrates. I try to cook everything myself, because I prefer to understand what we eat.
To feel satiated, I do not need a lot of food, and it is desirable that it was varied. The more vegetables, the better.
Usually we eat whatever is prepared. Exceptions are soups, lasagna and pizza. I always try to cook fresh food, but if by reason of employment does not work, then cook so that was enough for a maximum of two times. leftovers we have not discarded and are always processed into something tasty.
Our menu is very dependent on the time of year. In the summer, of course, the choice is much richer, we eat a lot of fruits and vegetables: porridge with berries (both cold and hot) cheese homemade desserts with berries, lazy pierogi, various egg dishes with vegetables and whole grain bread. Sometimes on weekends I can treat the family pancakes with homemade jam Pancakes with cottage cheese and berries or homemade Liege waffles.
Since I have a 9 year old son for morning tea, we usually delicious homemade cakes.
At lunch, as a rule, soups, salads, pasta, sandwiches, rice dishes (our favorite - Thai yellow curry with chicken) - all normally home and in various combinations.
In restaurants and cafes go rare, as most of the food served there, preparing the house and often tastier.