#BEATTHEBELLY Daily Tip: Shrink Your Plates

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I was brought up to finish my plate. Like many of the little chef generation I wanted the prized lolly for finishing my dinner.

Where did this rule of "finish the plate" come from?

I would hazard guess that it comes from my parents who growing up in post-war Britain when rationing was still in force and my father saw his first Banana when he was ten years old.

At that stage food was scarce, high energy food was prized, expensive and considered a luxury treat; in fact any tasty food you got was worth eating, while anything else you got was probably just eaten because you were hungry. So if you didn't finish your plate something was seriously wrong or you were at the very least disrespecting the cook and provider of the meal.

When I was at Uni we did a nutritional survey using ourselves as the guinea pigs.
I found that I was eating 3x the recommended energy requirement per day (even finishing friends leftovers!) for a man of my age and size; at that time I could get away with it as I rowed for the University, trained 6 days a week, cycled everywhere and ran around at weekends with the TA carrying 40Kg of military equipment; later when I continued to eat such large portions I put on weight as I was not maintaining enough activity when working in the hospital!

These days a few things have changed since the 1950's: we are not rationed; high energy food abounds and plates and portions have grown!

When We were married almost 9 years ago we were shocked to find that the special wedding list crockery just didn't fit into our old dishwasher because it the plates were too large. Main courses at restaurants have followed this trend and often come on outsized plates.

My advice - go back to basics and use a normal sized plate - you can finish it ok and you won't overdo the food intake.

If you are at a restaurant and your plate comes piled high eat what you feel comfortable with, slowly with plenty of water and leave excess carbs or fatty food on the plate.

Next time order a smaller portion or share, oh and get some smaller plates!


Dr Ben Sinclair
Sinclair Health Limited
https://www.optimiseclinic.co.uk
Twitter: @menshealthtips
Linked In: http://ow.ly/5iykm

Comments

  1. AnonymousThursday 14 July 2011 at 13:47:00 BST

    We bought some pasta bowls which we often use for other foods, they are smaller than dinner plates and look full with less.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dr Ben Sinclair MRCGP Wednesday 25 January 2012 at 11:28:00 GMT

    great idea with the bowls youre tricking your brain into finishing a smaller plate but still being satisfied

    ReplyDelete

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