Did you know that dinner plates, up until the late 1960’s used to be only 9 inches in diameter? Since then, they have kept getting bigger until today the average dinner plate is 12 inches wide. And so, when we fill our plates we are taking ever-larger portions, and when we eat everything on our plates like good boys and girls, we get ever fatter. Here is a discussion of the phenomenon, which also reviews the book The 9-Inch ‘Diet’
by A. M. Bogusky, who argues that we can lose weight by simply psyching ourselves out with smaller plates.
Christianity, Culture, Vocation
Lucas Cranach, self portrait c.1530.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
My family uses small 6 inch ceramic plates and it hasn’t done us any good that I can tell.
Even going back for seconds we still eat fewer square inches of food than on a 9 or 12 inch plate.
We use the lunch plates from our dish set, the dinner plates are too big. Like Doug, I don’t see that my waistline has benefitted much….p’raps I’d be huge if I used the larger ones rather than just pudgy!!! Small comfort there, but some none the less.
When I was a kid we used “Melmac” dinner plates. And come to think of it, they were smaller, weren’t they?
There’s something to be said for returning to the habits of yore, if we want to return to the waistlines of yore. But merely observing the dish sizes of yore ain’t gonna cut it, if you’re eating the junk food of today on the plates of yesterday (to name one thing that’s changed).
He’ll probably sell enough books to people desperate for a magical bullet (besides, of course: eat less and exercise more).
We have antique china and I’ll have to measure our plates but they seem to be 12″‘. Nonetheless thecare white so I try to arrange the food beautifully on the plates. My mom always told me that digestion begins with the eyes. Also she td me to use at least three colors in each meal. It helps us to eat better and since I’m an artist it’ s a way for me to get into healthy eating. P
We switched to smaller plates, threw out the sugar and most of the white flour, limit salty snacks to one bag of popcorn per month, and we’ve all benefited. I’ve lost 28 pounds (since July), my teenager has lost 8 pounds and my hubby’s cholesterol dropped 50 points.
Also drink sizes, candy bars, etc. Number of pop/soda/snack machines.
Other good resources related to this:
http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/portion/
http://www.amazon.com/reader/0767920686?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=sib%5Fdp%5Fpt