May

30

Healthy Eating Habits, Part 3 - Don’t clean your plate

Filed Under Eating Healthy 

Thisentryis part 3 of 5 in the series SERIES - Healthy Eating Habits
This post is part of a series

This special edition of 60 in 3 is brought to you from El Camino Hospital where I’m sitting waiting for my fiancé to get out of surgery. Just a minor procedure, in and out in under two hours we hope, although it’s been an hour so far and she hasn’t even seen the doctor yet. Anyway, we’re talking about healthy eating habits this week, so let’s find one more thing I used to do which was really bad.

Childhood advice

Do you remember what your mom told you when you were little? Well, besides “clean your room” and “wash your hands” that is. Go back to when you were at the dinner table and your mother (or your dad) would give you some advice about your meal. You’d hear “eat your vegetables” a lot, but you’d also hear the following “clean your plate, there are kids in Africa that would be happy to have your food”. Well, as a 6 year old, I was pretty scared of those kids taking away my food, so I cleaned off my plate each and every meal. Your parents might have had a variation on this theme, but quite a few of us grow up with some kind of ingrained habit to finish the food that’s put before us.

Adulthood problem

Unfortunately, things that were good when you were young, are no longer so beneficial to an adult. When you were a child, your parents controlled the size of your portions. Hopefully, they made sure you were eating kid sized meals. As an adult, you’re cooking for yourself and eating out a lot. Home cooking gives you a bit of control over portion size, but restaurants do not. When you’re at a restaurant, you receive whatever amount of food the restaurant sees fit to serve you with.

That wouldn’t be an issue if restaurants tried to serve healthy meals, but here in the US, many of our restaurants serve massive portions of unhealthy food. The food itself is bad enough, usually consisting of nothing more than fat and protein, but the sheer amount of it is overwhelming. The average fast food lunch, like a big mac, fries and a coke is around 1000 calories total. The average dinner at a place like appleby’s, Denny’s, TGIFridays or Cheesecake Factory can easily go as high or 2000 calories. That’s ALL of the average calorie intake for an average American woman by the way. That’s right, the average woman will eat her entire daily intake of calories by consuming one of these dinners.

Why do they do it?

Why do restaurants serve such unhealthy food in large quantities? Well, because it’s cheap and draws people in. As consumers, we’re drawn to places that provide us with a good deal, and a restaurant that gives us a lot of food for our money seems like a good deal. Unfortunately, it’s not a good deal for our health. Restaurant food is bad enough due to its quality and high reliance on fat, it gets even worse when you consume too much of it.

The solution

Here’s the easy way to avoid it. Use yesterday’s tip of eating slower. Make sure to drink plenty of water as you eat. Then, when you get about half way through your grand slam dinner, stop. It’s that easy. Stop eating and ask the waiter to box up your food. It sounds easy but it’s actually relatively hard. That childhood advice you’re your parents is now an ingrained habit. You’ve been taught to finish the food on your plate and it’s difficult to change your ways now. So think of it this way. You’re still finishing your food, you’re still getting a good deal and no food is going to waste. You’re just spreading out this good deal over two meals instead of one. In fact, you’re getting an even better deal out of it since you just got two meals for the price of one.

If you’re eating at home, serve your food on smaller plates. The plate will still look full but you’ll be consuming less food per serving. When you’re finished with a plate of food, wait. Don’t immediately go back for seconds. Remember, it takes your stomach a while before it can tell your brain that you’re full. So give your body time to talk to you. 20 to 30 minutes later, if you’re still feeling hungry then eat a small portion. If you’re not feeling hungry, you shouldn’t be eating.

Summary

You’re not a kid anymore and you’re not dealing with kid sized portions. You do not have to finish everything on your plate. You don’t have to finish everything you prepared. You’re much better off saving some for later. If you can’t save it for later, you’re still better off not eating some of it. That extra food is not a bargain, it’s extra calories you don’t need.

Series Navigation«Healthy Eating Habits, Part 2 - Slow and steady wins the raceHealthy Eating Habits, Part 4 - Stop drinking your calories»

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Comments

4 Responses to “Healthy Eating Habits, Part 3 - Don’t clean your plate”

  1. Vegetarian Carnival - Edition #1 on June 17th, 2007 9:09 pm

    [...] 60 IN 3 Gal Josefsberg presents Healthy Eating Habits, Part 3 - Don’t clean your plate, part of a series of articles about healthy eating habits (which are valid for vegetarians and [...]

  2. Weekend Roundup: Eating Healthy at the Dallas Airport Edition. : 60 IN 3 on June 24th, 2007 12:47 pm

    [...] Chick chose to feature my article about controlling portion size at her Carnival for Vegetarians. This collection of articles has some good reading for your [...]

  3. 杂乱的书桌 » 健康的饮食习惯，第三篇-扫盘子 on August 26th, 2007 1:05 pm

    [...] 原文地址：Don’t clean your plate 翻译：Hugh 这是关于健康饮食习惯这一系列文章中的第三篇。 [...]

  4. 杂乱的书桌 | 健康饮食习惯系列之三-扫盘子 on October 2nd, 2007 1:03 pm

    [...] 原文：Don’t clean your plate | 翻译：Hugh [...]

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