Interesting site on "Portion Distortion"

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  • paeli
    paeli Posts: 295 Member
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    Goodness... I've been astonished by the sizes of things as recently Tim Horton's (a coffee/donut shop here) changed their coffee sizing to make everything BIGGER. So the "Small" is now the cup size of an old "Medium", "Medium" became the size of an old "Large", etc etc. It's impossible to order, haha. At least they're transparent about modifying their cup sizes, it's just weird! We don't need more! Gigantic "Big Gulp" drinks, etc. are just OUT OF CONTROL.
  • Brandysaur
    Brandysaur Posts: 5
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    I think the frame of reference they use is "regular" sized items- Like a Whopper and regular fries. The Mc. Donalds cheeseburger (not big mac, 1/4 pounder, etc ) are pretty small.
  • StrongerJess
    StrongerJess Posts: 185 Member
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    There is a great book called "The Portion Teller" that shows how much serving sizes have increased and how it has affected every other aspect of marketing as a result. For example, they started marketing bigger plates and then had to start selling larger dishwashers to fit the plates. When they re-did the Yankee stadium, it went from fitting 88,000 people to 49,000. It's a pretty good read. Thanks for sharing that link.
  • Fit4Evolution
    Fit4Evolution Posts: 375 Member
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    well i know the portions have increased , but some of these numbers seemed to be scewed to scare you.. def not accurate 100% but the concepts is correct , we get a lot more food. we eat out more and the DIET on anything is very misleading , so is NO FAT or NO SUGAR ADDED
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
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    It's really useless to say that "a cheeseburger" has 590 calories when you don't give any idea how big the cheeseburger is.
  • jolarocknrolla
    jolarocknrolla Posts: 236 Member
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    I went to a local restaurant about 2 months ago and ordered a pasta dish that was EASILY 8 servings - seriously, there was no way I could have eaten half of it and I can put food away like a champ. I took the rest home in a big box and had 2 more meals out of it and had to finally throw the rest away.

    I wasn't born in the USA, I actually came from a once-communist country and when we came to the USA we used to take pictures in the grocery stores showing off all the food. When i have guests in from other European countries they LOVE to take pictures of crazy American portions at restaurants.
  • HeHealsMe
    HeHealsMe Posts: 179 Member
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    Bump for later..gotta go work out now..:bigsmile:
  • Sharyn913
    Sharyn913 Posts: 777 Member
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    I think that overall, the point of portions getting bigger is absolutely correct.

    I think a lot of their numbers are off.

    One of the reasons I got so fat was because I ate A LOT of the stuff they mentioned, and a lot of restaurant eating. I have a pretty good idea of calorie content.... but I think a lot of their numbers are off. And than the questions about how long it will take you to burn off the remaining calories switches back and forth between "based on a 130lb person" versus 160. Those numbers seem to be inaccurate as well.
  • sexforjaffacakes
    sexforjaffacakes Posts: 1,001 Member
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    It's really useless to say that "a cheeseburger" has 590 calories when you don't give any idea how big the cheeseburger is.

    or, comparing a plain coffee to a mocha...
  • 2hmom
    2hmom Posts: 241 Member
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    We were in a family type restaurant,they served breakfast on platters!
  • foodie99
    foodie99 Posts: 92
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    This article is in the current issue of Glamour magazine about portion sizes.

    http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2012/05/healthy-portion-sizes-glamour-june-2012

    Most shocking to me was the correct portion size of french fries.
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,454 Member
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    The french fries portion seemed tiny, but the spaghetti in tomato sauce was shockingly small! According to MFP a half-cup of spaghetti is 111 calories and the tomato sauce wouldn't add much. Is that really supposed to be a whole meal? Aren't we supposed to eat about 2000 - 2500 calories a day if we're not trying to lose weight? I'm eating bigger meals than that and still losing weight. Maybe the pasta is meant to be a side dish rather than a main meal, but there's nothing else on the plate with it.
  • monalissanne
    monalissanne Posts: 159 Member
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    I started using smaller plates and bowls at home. It really does subconsciously make me feel like I'm eating more.
  • mfp_1
    mfp_1 Posts: 516 Member
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    jolarocknroll wrote:
    When i have guests in from other European countries they LOVE to take pictures of crazy American portions at restaurants.

    Yes, I've heard people say things about that too.

    I think it's amazing that coffee shops etc have many terms like 'grande' and 'large' but never use the word 'small'. The best coffee I've had has been in Italy in a tiny tiny cup.

    I read there are two food cultures, the first predominant in the US and the second elsewhere:
    * The host wants to satisfy the guests by serving more food than they can eat.
    * The guest wants to compliment the cook by eating everything that's served.

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