Portion presentation

I've been eating better, wiser, LESS since the beginning of the year, and my ticker above shows the result. We've had a little discussion on the Quilters' Lounge about the HUGE sizes of restaurant meals, and it's true. Fast(er) food is, in my humble opinion, a HUGE factor in the widening of America (and Canada, Europe, Asia...) Starches and fat are cheap and take up lots of room on a big plate. What a bargain, all that food, for $7.99!

My upbringing taught me that you take what you'll eat, and you better eat what you take. All of it. So when the server brings me a HUGE plate with pasta, sauce, chicken, cheese... well, my inner child knows I'll be sitting there until it's done. All of it. Even if I don't want all of it. I'm getting better. I order lunch sized portions, I ask for a to go box at the BEGINNING of the meal and set a good portion aside before I even start to eat. I'm not hungry at the end of the smaller meal, in fact, more often than not, I'm comfortably full. There have even been occasions where I can't finish the smaller size. What the heck did I need a huge plateful for?!

At home, we all eat off smaller plates than the 12" restaurant behemoths. I eat most meals from an 8" luncheon plate, and I'm sure to load up the plate with garnishes - celery, carrots, extra vegetables, pickles. Or a pretty fan of apple slices, a rosette of clementine sections, a side salad. Presentation goes a LONG way when you're trying to control portions. 2 eggs, 3 strips of bacon and some wheat toast spread out over a big plate looks sad and pathetic (and skimpy!) Choose a smaller plate, add a slice of melon and some strawberries, and voila - it's beautiful!

Back to that QL discussion, Rian detailed her order - a patty melt, salad, cottage cheese. That's a pretty standard "dieter's special" around here. I'm betting it came attractively plated on a smallish dish. Had that meal arrived on a 12" plate, sans garnish, unembellished, un-presented I'm thinking her observation of the next table's "Rancher's Breakfast" with extra biscuits and gravy would have involved a little more salivating, a little less disbelief at the sheer volume of food. I too wonder if they finished - bet they did. And I probably would have too (without the biscuits) because that's the way I used to eat. Completely without thought to what that kind of slop trough eating was doing to me.

Fitzy lamented the presentation of her dinner the other night - halibut and extra vegetables. It arrived, amidst the heaped plates of her guests, sad and lonely - "lost on the white china sea." How unfortunate. Had the kitchen taken the tiny effort to simply grab a smaller plate, Fitzy's dinner would have looked just as appealing as her tablemates'.

We're going for thin and healthy, not anorexic and unattractive. Our dinners shouldn't look that way either.