Clean your plate. Don’t waste your food. You gotta eat what you took. As children we were all pushed to clean our plates. There was always that grim picture painted of the starving children in the world to spur us on to finish up our dinner and leave nothing on the plate.
In his provocative book, “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More
Than We Think”, author Brian Wansink, PhD, says that plate size has a dramatic
impact on how much we eat, and mostly unconsciously. Here’s what he found in
experiment after experiment—people will finish what’s on their plates
regardless of how much it is or how full they are. Plate size determines how
much people will consume in any given setting. And Dr. Wansink insists that this
behavior harkens back to that childhood dictum to clean your plate.
Given Dr. Wansink’s findings, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it is recommended that we should eat off of smaller plates. A natural and easy form of portion control—no weighing, no measuring—a smaller plate could decrease the amount of food we mindlessly eat and thus weight loss would follow. However, it’s a little more complicated than that. Plate size alone does not determine how much we eat—we’ll finish the entire tub of popcorn or the whole carton of ice cream too! Commercial food marketers know well the allure of “super size” because while most people will not order two packages of fries, they will say “yes” to one super size portion, and of course, eat them all.
Another form of “plate control” is suggested in “The Sonoma Diet” by Dr. Connie Guttersen, R.D., and PhD. Among the many excellent dietary suggestions put forth in this book, like eating more good fats, monounsaturated fats that are found in almonds and olive oil for example, Dr. Guttersen recommends that you have a “plate and bowl of your own.” And, you need to measure that plate to make sure it’s no more than 9” in diameter and the bowl should not hold more than two cups of liquid. Then you are to divide your plate into portions. For example dinner would be comprised of 30% protein, 20% grains and 50% vegetables. Again, it’s a form of portion control, but it’s far less intrusive and clinical than the scale, or the measuring cup, or the measuring spoons. If plate control can translate to waist control then it’s an easy and valuable tool to employ.