#BEATTHEBELLY Daily Tip: Shrink Your Plates
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 coul...