Portion Distortion: Why Bigger Really Isn?t Better
Sep 23, 2010 American Bakery
Ah, the good life. Dining out, shopping for clothes, dining out, shopping for clothes, dining out, shop… wait a minute. Is there a pattern here?
Americans are eating out more and more, and leading researchers say that’s a big part of why so many of us are overweight. The biggest part of that big part? Big portions!
When we eat out, we are usually getting a portion of food that is double, or even three or four times the size of what is considered a normal serving.
Many restaurant meals are upwards of 1,000 calories for a single meal! Remember what a big deal the Quarter Pounder was when it was introduced in the 1970s? Nowadays, it’s not surprising to see one-third and one-half pound burgers on a menu.
And it’s not just at restaurants. Grocery stores, bakeries, delis, everywhere, the portions are simply ballooning. Remember when a muffin was roughly the size of a cupcake? Not any more!
Yet researchers find, we’re still eating the whole thing, whatever the thing, without comprehending the alarming increase in our daily caloric intake.
It’s not that restaurants and food producers are deliberately trying to make us fat. They’re just trying to protect their market share of your food dollars, and to do that, they look for ways to improve value and appeal for their consumers.
Actual food ingredients are relatively cheap, compared to packaging, labor, rent, research, marketing, lobbying, advertising, and all the other expenses of bringing you that meal or snack. So from their end, it’s just good business to give you more and make you feel like you’re getting a deal. Everyone loves a bargain, and good value keeps us coming back.
The regular old 7-11 soda grew into a Gulp, and then a Big Gulp and then a Super Gulp. The basic American hamburger and fries meal got supersized, then double-sized.
But no matter how big they get, we keep eating whatever is served. With that much more food passing as a single meal, they might as well call it trouble-sized!
Many of us were raised hearing the admonition to “clean that plate,” and we feel obligated to finish whatever is served, whether or not Mom is still watching.
So take a plate full of way more food than we need, together with the training to eat more than we might even want, and you have a pretty reliable recipe for over-eating, and hence, weight gain.
But perhaps the most important consequence of all the commercial supersizing is what it’s done to our perception of appropriate portions.
As we get used to seeing those big portions when we eat out, we tend to recreate them in our home kitchens, so that even when we do our own cooking, we again serve ourselves more than we need, or even should have.
Researchers found that of all the places where we’re getting bigger portions, fast food servings have grown the most, followed by those we dish up at home. Our sense of appropriate servings has simply been distorted.
So what to do? When you’re at home, fill the plates from the stove and bring them to the table. Repeated studies have shown that if the food is within arm’s reach, we’ll eat it. But if we’ve got to go and get it, we are less likely to have more.
And before you do go for seconds, just sit a few moments and let your body catch up. It takes about 30 minutes for the hormones that signal satiety to get the message from the stomach to the brain.
When eating out, just imagine that every meal you order has a notation in the menu that says “serves two.” Decide how much you want to eat at the beginning of the meal, and before you even start, put the rest in that take-home container.
And when you’ve had enough, stop. Being satisfied doesn’t mean feeling stuffed, and enjoying a good meal shouldn’t leave you uncomfortable afterwards. That mountain of mashed potatoes isn’t Mr. Everest, and you don’t have to eat it just “because it’s there.”
And finally, whether you’re driving through, or sitting inside, or even ordering delivery, always resist the temptation to supersize.
It may seem like a great bargain at the moment, but in the long run, you end up paying for the extra calories, not with those extra few cents, but with your health.
THROUGH THICK & THIN
Remind yourself that you don’t have to eat everything you’re served, even if your mother is with you. After being trained all our lives to “clean that plate,” this can be a tough one. But go ahead and ask for that doggie bag, or give yourself permission to just leave some of your dinner on the plate.
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Tags: Alarming Increase, American Hamburger, Bakeries, Better, Bigger, Burgers, Calories, Cupcake, Daily Caloric Intake, Distortion, Food Dollars, Food Ingredients, Food Producers, Fries, Good Business, Grocery Stores, Isnt, Market Share, Muffin, Overweight, Portion, Portion Distortion, Quarter Pounder, Really, Research Marketing, Restaurant Meals, Snack
Make Any Cupcake Recipe Better With These 5 Healthy Cooking Tips
Aug 19, 2010 Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe
According to the media, millions of Americans are overweight. There are many diet plans aimed at helping people lose weight, but they all focus on an important fact–to lose weight, a person needs to decrease calories consumed. Staying on a diet plan can be a struggle, but the end result is worth the struggle. There are many ways to stay motivated while dieting, including not depriving yourself of your favorite treats. Cupcakes are a sweet indulgence that can be enjoyed while sticking to a healthy diet. Try these five tips for healthier cupcakes that will fit within your diet guidelines.
To enjoy cupcakes on a diet, try substituting healthier ingredients to cut calories and increase nutrients. For instance, use applesauce instead of oil, sugar substitute instead of regular sugar, and whole wheat flour instead of white flour. These changes will give your cupcakes a nutrient boost while cutting calories. If you are hesitant of these changes, try starting out by only substituting half of an ingredient until you get used to the flavor change.
Think outside of the flavor box and bake up a lighter batter. Try angel food cupcakes instead of chocolate. You can even flavor these cupcakes with cocoa to create a chocolate cupcake with a fraction of the calories a traditional chocolate cupcake would have. Other healthy flavor options include carrot cake, banana, zucchini, or raspberry. These flavors are delicious and allow you to indulge your sweet tooth while staying within your allotted calories.
If you just want a traditional cupcake, try miniature cupcakes. These can provide you with the taste and texture of cupcakes, but with fewer calories due to the small size. Miniature cupcakes can be packed in lunches, providing portion control while allowing you to have your sweet treat.
Frosting is a major source of calories on cupcakes. An easy way to lighten up cupcakes is to eliminate frosting. For vanilla or angel food cupcakes, try sprinkling the top of the cupcake with a dusting of cocoa powder. This will add a hint of chocolate without adding many calories. Another healthy frosting alternative is a homemade cream cheese frosting. By creating this frosting from scratch you are able to use reduced-fat cream cheese, thereby reducing calories. This cream cheese frosting can be flavored with canned pineapple tidbits, crushed strawberries, or whichever fruit that you prefer.
The last tip for creating healthier cupcakes is adding nutrients. While mixing cupcake batter, try folding in shredded zucchini or mashed bananas. This creates moist cupcakes with added vitamins. Adding a few tablespoons of flaxseed or protein powder will not noticeably change the flavor of cupcakes, but will increase the nutrients. Adding healthy nutrients to cupcakes will not decrease the calorie count, but will make your cupcakes a healthier alternative for a sweet treat.
Eating healthy foods does not have to mean depriving yourself. It is easy to make changes to a recipe in order to have the recipe fit your dieting needs. Cupcakes are a fun way to celebrate special occasions and can be a part of a healthy diet, if they are modified to your dietary needs and eaten in moderation.
Tags: Better, Cooking, Cupcake, Healthy, Overweight, Recipe, These, Tips
World Becomes Better With Delicious Bread Makers
Jun 12, 2010 Bread Bakeries
Kitchen is the place where people prepare their daily dishes. They can comfortably make dishes, if they have the support of branded kitchen appliances. Bread maker is one of the most important kitchen appliances, which contributes much to your morning breakfast. There are many people who always like to make breads for breakfast, although there are many bakery stores close to their apartments. The main reason for this is that the breads found at the local bakery stores do not meet the expectations of people. That is why, people like to have the best kind of bread making machines in their kitchens.
Many people complain about their noisy and weaker bread makers. To every problem there is a solution. Presently in the market, there are many modern bread making machines which are made with the latest technology. Modern housewives always like to have branded bread making machines. Women are always specific when it comes to buying a good looking as well as delicious bread making machines.
Such bread making tools are always known for saving time and let people get the tastiest kinds of breads. After buying a branded bread making machine, people need to fill up the machine with the essential ingredients like flour, water etc., and wait for a short time till it brings out the much awaited breads. Serve these hot on the breakfast table and have them to your taste. The present market for kitchen appliances is very huge and people should not get lost when they find many bread processing machines.
Folk should not end up buying huge bread makers, which do not fit in their kitchen counter. They should rather buy the ones which easily take small space. Such machines also come in great range of colours. People can choose a bread making machine in the particular colour which matches with the rest of the kitchen appliances. This step would definitely improve the look of a kitchen.
For buying the best range of bread makers, people take the advantage of online shopping sites. It would be better to choose those sites well-known for selling appealing as well as quality bread making machines. Many manufacturers have their own sites which are used for retailing their direct home products. Log on to such a site and check out various types of bread makers. Some of the globally known brands for selling best kinds of bread making machines are Panasonic, Kenwood, Morphy Richards, Prima, Russell Hobbs and Tesco.
