Dishin’ ABOUT the Dish

Good day everyone!

We all know about choosing the right foods to keep our health & weight in check. We also know that it’s considered more healthy to eat at home. I agreed with this until I read something last week about the “epidemic” of overeating in the United States and a comparison of past vs. present dish size.

We have become very used to going out to dinner and enjoying LARGE portions on platters considered dishes per person and considering that a value. This trend has indeed followed us home much to our dismay.

I just had to check in my own cupboards. I am lucky to be the “keeper of Grandma’s china” from the 1930’s (above right). I also have plates my friend, botanical artist Eileen Hahn, calls “frames for the food” that I bought about 10 years ago (above left).

You can clearly see the difference in the size of the plates, but look also at the actual measurements of the food area! The older plates are closer to the size of our present side/dessert plates than plate-to-plate. This is a HUGE realization. We all literally overeat every portion of food at home! Even the bowls have gotten double the depth.

Obesity was recently categorized as a disease. As I stated above, the word “epidemic” has been coined with overeating. Nowhere have I seen that we are responsible for what & how much we eat and how much we move. We have chosen to eat double and triple portions per meal and are surprised that we gain or “can’t” lose weight, or we make extreme diet changes to lose weight that we are destined to gain again due to our overindulgences in eating large-plates full of food.

Of course there is a small percentage of people who do everything right and still are challenged with severe health crises as a result of their size, where medical intervention is a life saver. But most, myself included, “suffer” from a lack of will-power & self-control, and have “trained” ourselves to “need” large portions to feel satisfied.

So here’s a challenge… take your large plates and put them away out of the kitchen. Use only your smaller dishes for the next couple of weeks. Limit yourself to one plateful of food per meal. Drink a large glass of water 10-20 minutes before you eat as you get your body used to less food. Make no other changes to diet, exercise… choices. I’ll tell you my results – you tell me yours. I bet we’ll all see a dip in the scale but an increase in energy. We’ll feel better, look better, and instead of worrying about “will” power, we’ll have “I WILL” POWER!

Are you with me?

Annette