Why are US meal portions so big??

morticia16

Not so sure why this escalated so much in all directions. Portion sizes for sure are culturally ingrained in different backgrounds.

I live in Belgium at the moment (not Belgian by nationality) and our frittes portions (French fries, though this is misleading, since in all reality they are a Belgian invention are proudly of disproportionally big sizes. McDonalds has nothing on us in this department.

I travel a lot and have lived abroad a lot and I must say that taking, say middle class restaurants as an example, portions will be different, wherever you go.

I find American portions in this type of restaurants really big. Then again, as I said, frittes portions in Belgium are huge, portions in a German/Bavarian middle class restaurant will inevitably be bigger than portions in a comparable restaurant in Northern Italy but could probably match those in Argentina or Mexico.

So what's the big deal anyway?

Happy Sunday, everybody!

Fullsterkur_woman

Its in American mindset that big =good.

America is such a biiiiiig country, and it loves everything big. Big houses, big spaces, big food, big shopping malls, big cars. Somewhere in a small town (under a million) in Midwest where the spaces are so huge, people can afford living in a huge house and driving huge cars. Parking is always available everywhere, and a single parking spot is huge. Most of the mid class people live in suburbs, where houses are really big. They feel that their personal space is big too, like 5-6 feet.

Also personal space is much smaller in a big city like NYC, it's 1-2 feet at max, often less during the morning rush in the subway, it can be 0.2 feet away from another person.

Is *that* why everybody's all in my grill all the time?! No wonder I love living in the coolest city in "flyover country". We may not have Broadway, but at least we're not all "Make Room! Make Room!" Enjoy your Soylent Green. I'ma go eat some brisket, egg, potato and cheese breakfast tacos.:bigsmile:

YaGigi

Its in American mindset that big =good.

America is such a biiiiiig country, and it loves everything big. Big houses, big spaces, big food, big shopping malls, big cars. Somewhere in a small town (under a million) in Midwest where the spaces are so huge, people can afford living in a huge house and driving huge cars. Parking is always available everywhere, and a single parking spot is huge. Most of the mid class people live in suburbs, where houses are really big. They feel that their personal space is big too, like 5-6 feet.

Also personal space is much smaller in a big city like NYC, it's 1-2 feet at max, often less during the morning rush in the subway, it can be 0.2 feet away from another person.

Is *that* why everybody's all in my grill all the time?! No wonder I love living in the coolest city in "flyover country". We may not have Broadway, but at least we're not all "Make Room! Make Room!" Enjoy your Soylent Green. I'ma go eat some brisket, egg, potato and cheese breakfast tacos.:bigsmile:

Huh?

kewpiecyster

I personally LOVE the big portions - because I always take half of my meal from a restaurant home to have for lunch another day...LOL! Or my son and I will split a meal if it is just the two of us. Now, before I started working on losing weight, I ate more than I do now...but I still never was able to finish a dinner at a sit-down restaurant. Fast food is another story...for some reason I can just keep eating the fries.....so I try to avoid them. Would love to stop altogether...but right now our life is crazy and I find myself there about once a week still.

SkinnyWannabeGal

Consumers like to get a big bang for their buck. The economy hasn't been the greatest lately and a good deal on food is sometimes hard to pass up. If an eatery is selling a large amount of food for a very low price, they will most likely gain business from doing so. I think it's cool that sometimes I can get 2-3 meals out of one serving of food in a restaurant. Heck, if that dish cost me $9 and I can split it into 3 good size meals, then I'm a happy camper who just paid $3 for my dinner 3 days in a row. Saving money rocks!

jen_zz

In some American chain restaurants in Hong Kong, there's a sign on the menu that says "WARNING: we serve American portions".

SpleenlessGal

I find portions are pretty similar in every country I've been in... and I've been to a lot of places. It's going to depend somewhat on how cheap or expensive a restaurant is. I have been to the U.S. several times and did not notice a big difference. Same with the UK when I went. Don't base portion size off of one meal.

stumblinthrulife

nationalistic thread is nationalistic.

i know it's popular in Europe to take potshots at the USA whenever and wherever possible, but just because you ate one meal in one restaurant and got a dumb explanation from one friend, does not mean that such an assertion (as found in your thread title) is universally true.

go to an expensive foo-foo restaurant in NYC and you'll find much smaller (and more expensive portions).

go to a pub in rural England and you'll find large portion sizes.

there is no government agency in either country that enforces a mandatory minimum portion size for restaurants. every restaurant and chef is different and has different standards.

I'm English, and moved to the States aged 26, nine years ago.

I will say that on average you are more likely to get an 'oversize' portion in an average American chain restaurant (i.e. excluding haute cuisine). English restaurants really aren't far behind, however.

As another poster said - it's simply the market responding to demand, and picking an easy to market aspect of your food. It's hard to market flavor, you can't put it in the advert. But you can easily market the quantity of food on the plate.

More and more American (and presumably British, I've not been home in a while) chain restaurants have 'healthy portion' choices on their menu now. I read these as 'normal human' portions - around 500 - 700 calories a plate, as opposed to 1000 - 1500.

cadaverousbones

Where I live (Bahrain) the American restaurants like Friday's and Chilli's do very large portion sizes, but that's fine by me, I eat until I'm full in the restaurant, then take the rest home in a box and have another one or two meals from it. I get two or three meals for the price of one.

I don't think it's just the USA though.... most British curry houses do huge portion sizes, plus it's not really going out for a curry unless you have a large pile of poppadoms as a starter and at least two side dishes with your main course..... and one curry house in Birmingham sells naan breads the size of a table. No exaggeration. And they're advertised as naan bread for four. Naan bread for 2-3 families more like! But anyway, the USA does not have a monopoly on large portion sizes.

I want to eat there...

BrainyBurro

German pretzel:



American pretzel:



this thread is invalid!

Patzycakes

I always just figured the restaurant wanted me to have lunch for the next day!

Here are my thoughts on this topic:

The portions are too big here. I figure, restaurants have a lot of competition. Size = Value in their minds. If they have a better "value" (more for your money) they get more customeres. Economy is poor, people want to get the "best bang for their buck".

The economy sucks, if you don't make a lot of money and going out to a restaurant is a treat, you want to "eat like a king" and the restaurant wants your business. So they make portions huge.

The US also has an issue where the poorer you are, the better chance you have of being overweight. It all ties together I'm sure.

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Athena53

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Totally agreed. DH and I are homebodies and we rarely eat out unless we're traveling. Sometimes we laugh at how cheap our meals are, especially the bean soup he makes with ham hocks. One strip steak will serve both of us, with leftovers that I cut up and throw into a salad the next day.

Heck, if that dish cost me $9 and I can split it into 3 good size meals, then I'm a happy camper who just paid $3 for my dinner 3 days in a row. Saving money rocks!

Restaurants make a lot of money from the extras- beverages, appetizers, desserts, etc. I know you can order tap water as a drink- I frequently do- and skip dessert, but even then you have to factor in the tip. Finally, the generous portions aren't generous with ingredients such as steak, shrimp, fresh-cooked veggies, etc. They're heavy on bread and pasta and other cheap starches. Your $9 would buy enough ingredients for both DH and me to have entrees for couple of days. While restaurants undoubtedly get price breaks because they buy in volume and frequently prepare everything at one central location up to the point that it's microwaveable, then ship it to the restaurants, there's no magic math here. They still have to pay for preparation, shipping, serving, etc. and that's passed on to you- plus the tip.

SpleenlessGal

Totally agreed. DH and I are homebodies and we rarely eat out unless we're traveling. Sometimes we laugh at how cheap our meals are, especially the bean soup he makes with ham hocks. One strip steak will serve both of us, with leftovers that I cut up and throw into a salad the next day.

Haha, same here. Honestly, eating at home is cheaper and I don't feel so full that I want to fall asleep afterwards. :P

Honestly, I just don't like eating out, because most restaurants over here do not have a calorie count of what is in their foods. It's hard to really judge how many tablespoons they may have used of some high calorie dressing (and you know they did not go for low fat, etc.). Same with how much oil they may have used, or they may have deep fried something... you know, it's just hard to tell sometimes how unhealthy something really is, because you don't know the full ingredients they may have used.

I used to eat at the cafeteria at my workplace, which was my downfall. I always had wraps there... haha. One of the things that really helped me lose weight (and save money) was deciding to bring my lunch into work every single day. That way I had no temptation for their crap food, and I knew exactly what I was getting.

The occasional time my friends invite me out to a restaurant, I will try to walk for hours beforehand. And then I'll pick the healthiest choice on the menu (which sometimes isn't even so healthy). Just because I know their choice of restaurants is going to be teeeeeeeeeeerrrrrible for me, but I still want to see them.

I think what's worse than big portion sizes is that a lot of bars offer 4 L pitchers... now THOSE call my name.... That is my definitely downfall. Beer!

jofjltncb6

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Wrong.

Oh, sure, I understand what you're *trying* to say with this comment, but it's still wrong as is.

whierd

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Wrong.

Oh, sure, I understand what you're *trying* to say with this comment, but it's still wrong as is.

And it is so close to being an agreeable comment.

Snow3y

because the people are big

jofjltncb6

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Wrong.

Oh, sure, I understand what you're *trying* to say with this comment, but it's still wrong as is.

And it is so close to being an agreeable comment.

Exactly.

One just has to realize there is a certain point where they can be reasonably certain that their statement is correct...but the temptation to overreach is so very strong. Going for the absolute is bold, but so often leads to fallacy.

Maybe next time.

hgycta

The only thing I can think of is restaurants hold the belief that consumers only care about getting the most for their buck.

Athena53

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Wrong.

Oh, sure, I understand what you're *trying* to say with this comment, but it's still wrong as is.

OK, I'm only an actuary so maybe these concepts are too complicated for me. Let's assume a restaurant can buy equivalent ingredients 10% cheaper. Even if they added no additional costs and charged only for ingredients, I'd have to pay a tip on top of that so it would cost just about what I pay at home. Except that restaurants pay rent, taxes, advertising, wages, utilities, and some profit for the owner. All of that is added into the cost of the food. Unless you're comparing the 80%-lean (that means 20% fat) burger from the shins of the cow on a crappy refined white-flour bun from McDonald's Dollar Menu with the one Iowa-cut pork chop that feeds both DH and me, I don't know how it can ever be cheaper to eat at a restaurant.

BeachIron

Cooking at home is always your cheapest and best option.

Wrong.

Oh, sure, I understand what you're *trying* to say with this comment, but it's still wrong as is.

OK, I'm only an actuary so maybe these concepts are too complicated for me. Let's assume a restaurant can buy equivalent ingredients 10% cheaper. Even if they added no additional costs and charged only for ingredients, I'd have to pay a tip on top of that so it would cost just about what I pay at home. Except that restaurants pay rent, taxes, advertising, wages, utilities, and some profit for the owner. All of that is added into the cost of the food. Unless you're comparing the 80%-lean (that means 20% fat) burger from the shins of the cow on a crappy refined white-flour bun from McDonald's Dollar Menu with the one Iowa-cut pork chop that feeds both DH and me, I don't know how it can ever be cheaper to eat at a restaurant.

Retail grocers also pay rent, taxes, advertising, wages, and utilities and hope for some profit from the owner. Only restaurants don't buy from retail grocers. And if you're buying that magic pork chop from a place like Whole Foods then you are paying a hefty premium. But go on with comparing the magic pork chop to McDonalds. Perhaps they don't teach cost accounting in actuary school?