Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for May 14, 2010

“I’ll have an America, please”. “Would you like that supersized”. McDonalds rules, America drules.

The real problem is that our greed is huge. Even if you have a large plate of food in front of you, it doesn’t mean you have to eat it. Take half of it home!

I’ll take a supersize hug anyday! :)

The question is, will Irving give her a supersize hug???

But people are starving in Asia! You have to finish everything on your plate! (My mom always used to tell me this. I once asked how my eating too much here in the USA fed the starving people in Asia. I learned my lesson–don’t ask your mom such questions!)

I don’t really understand that either, Puddleglum; my mother never enforced that.

Whoever wrote that magazine is terribly bitter. I lost weight easily; I woke up, said “I think I’ll only eat when I’m hungry”, and did just that.

Banana you must be the exception then.. Cathy nailed it, portion sizes are too big, people each too much (even subconsciously just because its in front of them) and sometimes they take half of it home … to eat even more later. Stop ordering the combo because its easy, or an amount thats reasonable, its cheaper and doesn’t make you as fat.

puddleglum1066 said, about 2 hours ago

But people are starving in Asia! You have to finish everything on your plate! (My mom always used to tell me this. I once asked how my eating too much here in the USA fed the starving people in Asia. I learned my lesson–don’t ask your mom such questions!)

BananaSlug said, about 1 hour ago

I don’t really understand that either, Puddleglum; my mother never enforced that.

It’s a leftover mindset from the Great Depression/World War II era, when people were taught to “Eat it up/Wear it out/Make it do/Or do without” and “Waste not, want not,” because food was too expensive to waste (and, because of rationing during WWII, extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain and store in large quantities.)

Prior to the Great Depression, the opposite mindset prevailed, and children were actually taught not to clean their plates entirely (as doing so was considered to be a sign of gluttony and extremely poor table manners.) Instead, they were always told to “leave something for Mr. (or Miss) Manners.”

Thus, we’ve gone from one cultural extreme to the other, and the results have been disastrous in terms of people’s health. No, we’re not “doomed to be obese because portion sizes are huge,” we’re “doomed to be obese” because of a shortage of common sense!

better yet, stay home and cook

I wonder if Irving has an app for that on his digital mistress?

A restaurant portion size should be the average of what any person would eat. How much someone can eat varies between individuals. You don’t want to pay for a meal and get a portion that is too small to satisfy your appetite. There should be enough to fill you. If my portion size is too much for you to eat, nobody says you have to eat it all. They have always had doggie bags.

On another note, dining out isn’t supposed to be a daily occurance. It’s supposed to be an occasional treat, and you want to enjoy it when you do it. Some people eat from restaurants far too often, leaving them less control over exactly what they are really consuming, which is the real problem with it all.

Cathy has no problem scarfing down supersize everything. Since when is small ever her choice, let alone too huge for her to eat? We’ve seen her wipe out entire holiday tables, then ask what’s for dessert.

My answer to the kids starving in China routine was “Then send them mine.” If I can’t eat it, I can’t eat it.

You and me both Cathy….you and me both.

Better a larger hug than a larger portion of food!

I’ve read about some studies that were done on portion control. If you served food on a larger plate, people were indeed more likely to eat more.

My mother never mentioned the starving children anywhere. She knew that my eating or not wouldn’t have the slightest effect on their welfare. In fact, she kept begging us not to empty our plates if we weren’t hungry, but we had this compulsion to finish the whole thing…

Puddlegum – made me wonder why they didn’t send some of what was on my plate to children in China so I could have desert.

Does Irving even know how to give a hug?