Portion Sizes and Responsibility

Hi guys,

You all had some great comments on my morning post discussing restaurant portion size. Here are a few of them:

K said:

"Ugh, portion sizes drive me insane! They're HUGE!! People do not need that much food in one setting. I remember I went out to eat at a chain restaurant (not my choice) and I hit my max point but it didn't even look like I made a dent! Ugh!"

Definitely agreed! Most restaurant portions are definitely too much for the average person to consume in one sitting.

Mrs. LC said:

"It's absurd how much portion sizes keep going up. I feel like what used to be a "small" is now a "junior", the smalls are regulars, the mediums are larges, and the larges are practically gallon sized! It's so crazy! What's sad too is how the size of kids meals keep going up. What are we doing to kids?!?"

Portion sizes have definitely increased from the way the were 20 years ago! I have an article link about this later in the post.

Rose said:

"Portion size always drove me crazy when I was a teenager working at Burger King. It's ridiculous how much sizes have changed over our lifetime. I remember when people ordered, we automatically gave them the Large option if they didn't specify. I can't believe we were required to do that."

Wow, I had no idea. That's crazy!

Emma said:

"Ugh - the portion sizes in the US are ridic. No one should be consuming so much - the only thing that I feel can be served in large quantities are things like green tea, salads, and other vegetables."

I totally agree on the salads! Haha, I eat them out of serving bowls :D

A said:

"I totally agree that portion sizes are ridiculous!!! I always tell the waiter at a restaurant to bring me a to-go box WITH my meal. When the food arrives I put half of it RIGHT INTO the box. It's a trick I read years ago in a magazine and I LOVE the idea. Then I get to bring the other half of my meal into work the next day! Score! So to answer your question, I personally think portion sizes should stay the same. Don't blame the restaurant. PEOPLE should be more responsible about how they divide the portion."

C.G. the Foodie said:

"That coffee is MASSIVE!!! I love ordering kids meals when I am on the road because they are normal people size. I am even willing to pay adult prices if it means I get the smaller portion. Or I ask for a box up front and pack most of it away for future meals"

Great ideas, guys! I agree that it's not the restaurant's fault that many people choose to eat all or most of the portion in one sitting. It's a good plan to ask for a box at the start, especially so you're not tempted to keep eating past fullness just because the food is in front of you.

I wish portion sizes were smaller to try to get a hold on the "bigger is better" mentality, and also because it might make weight control slightly easier for those who don't pay attention to portion control. It's been shown that people eat more when they are given bigger portion sizes (link).

It could also help give the general public a better idea of what a normal portion is. I know many of us here are educated about food and nutrition to different degrees. But many Americans don't even know how to read a nutrition label (hello, "amount of servings!"). I'm all for taking responsibility for your own actions. But I don't think cutting down restaurant/fast food portion sizes is a radical idea--it's not like we're banning fried onion rings and greasy burgers. America's food portions are much bigger compared to other parts of the world.

Here's an article about American portion sizes vs. other countries

But you're right--life is full of choices, and (in most cases) people do have control over their health and what they put in there body.

Even though some people take home leftovers (great idea if the food is good!), others either leave the rest of the food or eat it all. In a general sense, I think that's wasteful. It's just too much food to begin with. I think it'd be great if portion sizes decreased by even 25%. You'd still get plenty of food, but without as much excess.

Portion sizes have increased tremendously over the last 20 years. This page has a picture comparison of then and now sizes for drinks, chips, soft drinks. I really recommend clicking looking at it--it's crazy! As a general population, we haven't become more active than we were back then. In fact, we probably move much less! So why do we need more food/fuel? The fact is, we don't. I'd love to see portion sizes creep back down.

I'd love to continue hearing your thoughts and opinions if you'd like to share.

******

Back to the eats!

So, remember how I mentioned in my earlier post how I'm supposed to rub that bone on my nose to smooth it out/push it back in or whatever? Well, massaging it has proved to be so painful that it makes me nauseated. Lovely.

I had some frozen grapes + cherries (unpictured) earlier in the morning before I started to feel sick, though:



But after rubbing my stupid nose, I could only stomach pumpkin around lunchtime:


x2

I know, I was so upset ;) I could probably have had soup, but I only wanted pumpkin + reddiwhip.

But around 3:00, I started getting shaky and knew I had to eat something more. So I made a crack wrap.



My girl K gave me a heads up to look for Basha hummus, cause it's even better than Sabra. Say what?? Ummm, so I pretty much had to find this hummus. Thankfully, our Whole Foods had it! I got the Roasted Red Pepper kind, and slapped that and some goat cheese on a La Tortilla Factory tortilla. I got it all nice, warm, and toasty in the skillet.

Delicious! I tasted the Basha hummus by itself too, and yep--definitely gives Sabra a run for their money! Super creamy and bursting with flavor :D

I still felt a little light-headed, and had a rice cake with peanut butter and a big glass of water.



I couldn't decide between PB & Co.'s The Bee's Knees or Mighty Maple, so I just used them both. Then I got "The Best of Both Worlds" or whatever stuck in my head by Hannah Montana. Except all I know is "you get the beeeeesssst of both worlds!" so that one line was just on repeat over and over. Haha, I swear the only pain med I'm on is ibprofen ;)

Oh, but then I wanted it to be chocolaty, so what's a girl to do? Sprinkle on a smidge of unsweetened cocoa powder and rub it in.



It worked well cause Mighty Maple pb is almost too sweet, so it canceled out the "unsweetened" part of the cocoa powder.

Then I felt like total crap from rubbing that spot on my nose. I wanted to just lay down on the floor, but we were planning to make falafel tonight and we didn't have any greek yogurt for the tzatziki sauce. So pain or no pain, that needed to be remedied by a trip to WF. Plus, I don't like the idea of not having greek yogurt in my fridge ;)

I made it back and started making the greek yogurt sauce and the falafel. I've been wanting to make the falafel from Steph Chows for the longest time, so that was the recipe I used! It turned out great, and you can find her recipe here. Thanks Steph!

My family ate the falafel in wraps, but I wanted it on salad since I already had a wrap today. Plus, a big salad sounded fantastic. Look at this delicious bowl:



Yep, that's my trusty green serving bowl from IKEA :) It's much bigger than it looks (TWSS)
I'm A-ok with supersizing salads! Haha. Alright, this baby's got:

Romaine lettuce
Mushrooms
Grape tomatoes
Cucumber slices
Sprouts
Falafel smeared with Sabra sundried tomato hummus
Goat cheese crumbles
Greek yogurt tzatziki sauce

The greek yogurt sauce was made with Fage 0% greek yogurt, thinned with water. Then I diced some cucumber, smashed 2 garlic cloves, and added some minced onion. It was good (and super garlicy!)

We also had some oven-roasted corn, which was delicious:



I had 2 pieces :)

Ok, so I'm about to go take a walk. I still feel kinda sick, but darn it I will not have a bump on my nasal bone! I didn't go through all that surgery pain to have it come out weird. I'm not gonna overdo it, but I definitely will keep rubbing that darn spot 3-4x a day. Even if I feel like I'm gonna throw up afterwards :( I'm just worried that since it's swollen now, you don't see the bump, but when the swelling goes down you will.

My mom said that if it was a huge deal, the surgeon would have been more worried, but he wasn't. She also said that it's good the pain kinda lingers (lol), cause it means it's probably working. That's probably true, so I'm gonna try not to worry. I'm seeing the doc again next Wednesday, so that's good.

Alright lovelies, I'm out. If you have any more comments about portion sizing, I'd love to hear them :)

Have a lovely night!