Portions and Plates

 A little fun fact for you all today!

Have you ever looked at your dinner plates?   The average dinner plate in the United States is 11-12 inches across.  By comparison, European plates are roughly 9 inches across.  Since 1960, the size of dinner plates has increased 36%!!  Some restaurants in the US use plates that are a huge 13 inches across!

Maybe you're wondering what got me looking at the size of plates.  Well, like a lot of other low-income people, I am overweight.  I am currently doing Keto to try to get that under control.  One of the biggest things that has helped me on my weight loss journey has been my portion size.   

See, I was raised in that, you fill your plate, and then you eat what's on your plate.  Stop and think about that for a few minutes in terms of what you're eating.   If you aren't eating healthy foods, you're filling a 12 inch plate with stuff that isn't good for you, and then putting all of that into your body.   

Even when you're eating healthy food, that is a LOT to eat!  You can be eating the most healthy food in the world, but if you're eating too much, its going to affect you negatively.  

I switched to using the smaller plate that comes with my set a while back.  We always called them "bread plates" growing up.  Or, it was the plate size that the kids got at dinner.  Much to my surprise, I still got full!  And, when I reduced my serving sizes to what they should be, instead of what we, here in the US have been trained to eat, I started losing weight.

Portions are important.   Let me use this example - you know those little bags of chips that you can get at convenience stores?  Look at the back, where the nutrition facts are.  Find the serving size.   The majority of those bags of chips are multiple serving bags!!  Roughly 3 servings, to be exact.  Now, start looking at items in your pantry.  Check out your cans of soup.  I know, I know - a can of soup for me used to be one serving!!  How many servings are in that bag of frozen broccoli?

We've stretched our stomachs out to the point that we think that we need more food to survive than we really do.   A lot of times, I've found, that my body confuses boredom with hunger, also.  I figured out that I was eating a lot of stuff that I didn't need to be eating!!  

Now think about this in terms of being low income and feeding your family.  If you're feeding your family more than they need to eat, because your portions are too big, then you are probably overspending on your food budget.   Start looking at portion sizes.  

This is one reason that we run out of food stamps before the end of the month.  This is part of the reason our food budget is falling short before its supposed to.  

I'm not telling you to starve your family - far from it.  I'm asking you to consider that you might be overfeeding them without meaning to, simply because of the way that we have been taught, here in the US.  

I'll leave you with a quote that I read somewhere.  Its short, simple, but it makes a lot of sense.  "Stop living to eat.  Eat to live, instead."

♥♥♥