Things I Like - Food

Well we're 3 months into 2009 - how many of you are keeping up with your resolution to eat healthy and exercise more? I thought I was in good shape on both fronts until I went to New York a couple weeks ago and started to see menus in restaurants with the calorie / fat content next to the description.

Talk about a slap upside the head - who wants to eat two day's worth of calories and almost a week's worth of fat in one meal? And it's not due solely to all the butter and high fat ingredients that restaurants use to make their food so tasty. It's also serving size. The average restaurant entree is currently the equivalent of two standard servings, steak houses are worse, offering 4 - 6 standard servings on one plate. No wonder so many Americans have a weight problem. Portion size has gotten out of control.

We all know that portion size has been increasing, but are you aware of the magnitude of this increase over time? A study done by the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2004 looked at the increase in size (both physical and caloric) of several basic food items in the last 20 years. Take the chocolate chip cookie.

This is what it looked like in the early 80's. About 1.5 inch diameter and 55 calories.





Here it is today - 3.5 inch diameter and 275 calories. Even if you had 4 of the 80's cookie, you'd still get more calories in just one of today's cookies. And that study was done 5 years ago. I'm pretty sure that the cookies haven't been getting smaller.

But we can't put all the blame on restaurants, Americans are eating larger portions at home too. A study conducted by Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, and Collin Payne, assistant professor of marketing at New Mexico State University looked at changes in cookbooks. Focusing on basic recipes contained in Joy of Cooking or Better Homes & Gardens, they found an average 40% rise in calories per serving for the same recipe today as compared to the original publication in the 30's.

Some of the increases were found to be due to amount changes in ingredients (1 cup vs. 3 tablespoons of sour cream in a beef stroganoff recipe) but many were due to portion change. A recipe for Gumbo in Joy of Cooking that originally served 14 with 228 calories now serves only 10 at 576 calories each.

It's called Portion Distortion. Americans have totally lost touch with what constitutes a reasonable serving of food. Next week, more detail on how to recognize a true serving size and manage calorie content for more healthy eating. I'm going to go have an apple for lunch.