The Problem With Serving Sizes

Plate and bowl sizes exasperate the problem. It seems to be trendy now for crockery to be oversized with respect to what a portion should be. The problem is that people have a habit of filling their whole plate with food, regardless of it's size. A study was done quite recently that showed that people on average eat more if plates and bowls are bigger. Psychologically a meal looks meagre if it only fills part of the plate, this seems to trick people into thinking that they are still hungry. Seems like we're losing our ability to understand when we are actually full.
 
Energize said:
Serving sizes are laughable, who eats half a thin pizza? Even a full one is not enough for a dinner. Manufacturers just use servings as a false way of reducing the calorie count; saying it serves 2 instead of one or 8 instead of 6 gets them a nice green label which people think is good.
Click to expand...

If it has a green label then it must be moderately healthy. They cant sell a cheesecake and tell you that it has 100 portions so each portion is only 10 calories and then get a green label and screw you if you happen to eat a quarter of it.

peter_hutson said:
Seems like we're losing our ability to understand when we are actually full.
Click to expand...

A problem exasperated by too many people wolfing food down at an alarming rate. By the time the brain has started letting you know you are full you've finished your dinner and probably your dessert. You are supposed to chew each mouthful something like 20 times to aid digestion. I can eat an entire Mars bar in about 10. You should continue chewing any solid food until you can no longer discern the difference of the items that made it up. EG if you have a bit of sausage, some mash and a few peas on your fork, you shouldn't swallow until you can no longer tell from the texture what it was you put in. I'm willing to bet most people might give such a mouthful 7-10 chews and down it goes. Your dinner is finished in half the time an the brain is only just realising that you were full about 3/4 of the way through your meal.
 
Last edited:
The best one I find is when something is advertised as 'Fat Free' and people assume they can eat as much as they want of it without getting fat.
 
AS i live by myself i get annoyed that everything usually comes in twos or more. If i buy chicken breasts they usually two or more and then i have to freeze some or use it all up in a few days, i hate freezing meat like that. So i end either eating two chicken breasts or throwing one away. Same thing happens with sausages, ill buy six sausages because they don't sell less and ill eat three then i have to try and eat another three before they go off, which i rarely manage to do.
 
groen said:
AS i live by myself i get annoyed that everything usually comes in twos or more. If i buy chicken breasts they usually two or more and then i have to freeze some or use it all up in a few days, i hate freezing meat like that. So i end either eating two chicken breasts or throwing one away. Same thing happens with sausages, ill buy six sausages because they don't sell less and ill eat three then i have to try and eat another three before they go off, which i rarely manage to do.
Click to expand...

I'm the opposite, I get annoyed with things being in small packs. Would much rather see things get bundled more so as to pass savings onto consumers.

How can you not eat two chicken breasts before they go off? Hell I could quite happily eat two in a sitting. Either way it certainly would not last more than a day!
 
groen said:
AS i live by myself i get annoyed that everything usually comes in twos or more. If i buy chicken breasts they usually two or more and then i have to freeze some or use it all up in a few days, i hate freezing meat like that. So i end either eating two chicken breasts or throwing one away. Same thing happens with sausages, ill buy six sausages because they don't sell less and ill eat three then i have to try and eat another three before they go off, which i rarely manage to do.
Click to expand...

Go to a butcher? Problem solved.
 
G J said:
I stopped eating the Tesco finest cookies after doing a quick search on their website as there's no information on the packaging.

Here's the info here:http://www.tesco.com/superstore/xpi/5/xpi56863275.htm

To think I used to eat 2-4 cookies a day and on some week's 3-4 packs. :eek:

I agree with others that some food product information could be clearer
Click to expand...

Considering a chocolate digestive is 100 calories, were you really that suprised?

:rolleyes:
 
aproctor said:
Considering a chocolate digestive is 100 calories, were you really that suprised?

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Don't roll your eyes at me! :p TBH I was surprised and I'm still am when I read some food product labels and I'm learning and getting a lot better at the things I choose to eat.
 
A 500ml bottle of coke is 4 servings though? At least when mixing it with a nice old Rum...........
 
platinum87 said:
Your suppose to stop eating when you are not hungry any more
Click to expand...

Most people stop eating when their plate is cleared, or equivalently, when the container the food came in is empty. I don't think you can really blame people for that; we're all trained from an early age that it's bad to waste food (probably a hold-over from the bad old days when there was never enough food), and it's difficult to break that cultural conditioning.

Personally, I just prefer to count my calories and plan what I'm going to eat based on that.
 
I have always gone by if people were to know the core ingrediants calorie ratings, they would avoid food with said ingrediants with high calories...

Cheese is a prime suspect, I love cheese but it is very fattening if you have too much.
 
This is only kind of relevant but, have you noticed those new 250ml pepsi cans? At first I thought that there was no where near enough! But having had one every now and again I have found it is perfect. 330ml cans seems huge now!

What I'm saying is the op has made a good point, people will assume something they buy in general is one serving when buying such products. I think the education should lie with both the manufacturers and consumers.

As sly above has commented, people will stop eating when the product has been consumed. This is the main source of the problem in my opinion.

Personally I naturally stopped eating when I was full but my father always forced me to finish everything on my plate otherwise I would be "wasting" food. I think this is the mentality forced into youngersters as they grow up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom