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The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoThis should be common sense. Obviously, wasting food is bad. But if you've already served yourself too much, it's a sunk cost. This should be taught to kids, even if it's a somewhat more complicated lesson.
- sethammons 8y agoMom: "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!". Thanks Mom; kids are still starving there, and now America is fat. --unkown comedian. I was told, as a kid, that it was rude to not eat all the food put in front of you, especially at other people's houses. Other parents would comment on how polite we children were for clearing our plates.
- tonysdg 8y agoI know that Allen Sherman did a version of that joke in his "Ode to Fat People" :-)
- xvilka 8y agoChina? These days it is largely not suffering the problem of starving people. There are new countries who joined this "club" though. Not to mention Venezuela and Yemen where everyone is on brink of death from starvation.
- johnisgood 8y ago> "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!" This does not make much sense to me. If eating all your food is the only alternative to throwing food out, it is sort of OK, but even then, it does not solve the issue at all because you are the one eating all the food, not the starving kids in China. Additionally, why come up with such nonsense? This is one of the worst things you could do to your kid. You should instead educate them and tell them the actual reasons for why one should not waste food. Mind you, if you cook less instead, then you would not have to eat them, nor throw them out. :)
- pkaye 8y agoI think what they are really meaning is "There are starving kids out in the world. Be grateful you have all this food available and don't waste it."
- johnisgood 8y agoHmm, yes, I agree with that, but then again: if the kid's parents were to cook less, then the kid would not have had to eat it "forcefully". The only reason I assume force here is because the kid would not need any reasons to be told if s/he is hungry. It seems to me that this is a special scenario, but being grateful for the things you have is not, and should not be a special case, IMO. I am not sure that this is how I would teach my kid to be grateful, especially because the kid might perceive it to be forced and might backfire in the future. Anyways, we might be overthinking this. :)
- jdminhbg 8y agoIt's not so much about "I cooked a lot of food, eat all of it" as it is about "you ate the French fries but haven't touched the broccoli," usually. In other words, it's a cliche dragged out when a kid is being picky about something.
- lazyasciiart 8y agoDo you have kids? Some of the little kids I've known would literally not want to eat anything all day. I don't know if they didn't feel hunger or just didn't yet associate it with eating. And plenty of kids (and adults!) will refuse food they don't like even if they are 'hungry', because during a normal western life they don't actually get that hungry. Because parents don't want to starve their kid into eating vegetables, they need to find methods other than "let them go hungry".
- johnisgood 8y agoThat is not the case being talked about, and even in your case, this is still not how I would teach my kid to be grateful. I never said I would let them go hungry, I am really not sure from where you got that. I assume you are only responding to "the kid would not need any reasons to be told if s/he is hungry.". It is true in most cases, I was not accounting for depression and so on, but that in itself might dissipate hunger. Most toddlers will eat when they are hungry, they will not just go hungry. Power play or power struggles complicates things, I deliberately did not bring it into this. Regardless, I still do not see that it is necessary to come up with reasons that are completely wrong or silly. :)
- flaque 8y agoSpeculation, but does food waste reduce food prices?
- marcosdumay 8y agoIt makes absolutely no difference if you eat the extra food on your plate or if you throw it at the trash (how could it?). The only thing that changes is that one gets you fatter.
- matte_black 8y agoIt’s funny because I think in China or some other Asian countries it’s considered rude to actual clean off your whole plate, you should always leave a little bit. Otherwise what you’re basically saying is “What the fuck!? You’re so fucking poor you can’t afford to give me more than enough food?”
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- vidanay 8y agoMom: There are starving children in Africa. Me: Got a stamp? Mom: <SMACK!>
- torstenvl 8y agoWhen I studied in France, my host family taught me that, instead, it was an insult to eat everything on your plate. Eating everything on your plate indicated that you were ravenously hungry, taking advantage of your host's hospitality. Leaving just a little uneaten meant that you ate as much as you could because you found the food delicious.
- yhoiseth 8y agoAs a rule of thumb, I tell myself that it’s better to throw away food than to overeat. (Preparing just the right amount is even better, but more difficult.)
- sixstringtheory 8y agoWhat about saving for the next day, composting or donating? As a former professional cook it burns me to see such a casual suggestion to waste food. I’ve worked for people who would weigh the food you swept up off the floor at the end of the day to illustrate waste.
- loeg 8y agoComposting is just one (preferred) way to throw away food. Saving for the next day and especially donating isn't practical in the small amounts we're talking about. Personal home cooking is very different from large scale professional kitchens / dining.
- sixstringtheory 8y agoBoth professional and personal cooking vary widely depending on who’s doing the work. I’ve seen careful and careless practices in both. You might be surprised though how leftovers are recombined to form new dishes, even in large scale operations. Working with what you got can be just as important as food safety, foundational knowledge or technique. It helps to have a few go-to recipes that can accept a wide variety of ingredients in small portions. For me, I usually go to either omelettes, veggie burgers or fried rice / stir fry. Donating is the hardest one for sure due to laws and logistics. I’ve taken to giving out my extra sourdough bread or cinnamon rolls to friends and neighbors, or have my wife take them to the office; there’s always one or two that we know we won’t get to before they go bad (if we want to maintain our physiques anyways).
- dom96 8y agoFor myself at least, saving food for the next day is rather difficult. Mainly because nowadays I very seldom cook food for myself, a lot of my food consumption is through ready made meals that I can just put in the oven or microwave. The packaging almost always warns that this type of food cannot be reheated so I don't save it. I think a lot of people do this. Even if I do cook for myself I am often unsure whether it is safe to reheat the food, and for how long.
- saagarjha 8y agoAt the risk of sounding preachy, I was raised with the “clean plate” philosophy and avoided overeating by planning beforehand what I could reasonably eat, and never putting anything more on my plate. Once you get rid of the incentive at the very end to eat just a bit more, I don’t see this as being a huge problem anymore.
- amelius 8y agoI have a friend who preaches this. But then she also has these regular high-tea parties where everybody brings cake. Ok, they eat all the cake, but since they are eating more than they actually need, it's still a waste ...
- nostrademons 8y agoIt works when you serve yourself or otherwise have control over your own portions. When I moved away to college I found that suddenly I usually cleaned my plate and didn't overstuff myself. Ditto when I cook for myself. Not everybody eats under those conditions. When I was a kid my parents would always put food on my plate, and I was expected to eat it all. They usually put too much, because nobody wants to be the parent who starves their kid. Similarly, restaurants always tend to err on the side of serving too much rather than too little, as do family gatherings or dinner parties where the guests do not serve themselves.
- saagarjha 8y agoInterestingly, the my parents were the ones serving me for the majority of my childhood. I guess they had already internalized this rule and knew how much food I needed ;) At restaurants, we would usually skimp on appetizers and other “fluff” before the main course, which I have found makes the total amount of food not overly large.
- tapland 8y agoTbh your post reads as 'I avoided overeating by me learning how much I needed to eat and me never putting extra on the plate' In reality I guess you had unusual parents who were good at telling how much you needed, so you didn't avoid this problem in any way at all, you were just not subject to it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- starefossen 8y agoAt least where I live in Norway I would argue that it is not the amount of food you eat during a meal that is a problem but everything else in between regular meals (coke, chocolate, chips etc.).
- drchickensalad 8y agoI've eliminated all snacking and soda calories from my life and I still have a big problem with maintaining/losing weight. Definitely should be helping though.
- glastra 8y agoMaybe lower your carb intake or incorporate a daily intermittent fasting regime. What does your usual day look like food-wise?
- black-tea 8y agoSo you're eating 4-5 meals a day, I suppose? Eat two meals and you will lose weight. Simple as that.
- Markoff 8y agoand smaller portions
- drchickensalad 8y agoI'm usually two or three meals. Just hard to control portion consistently.
- black-tea 8y agoTry weighing out your carbs and the rest of the meal should sort itself out. Pasta and rice should be about 100-125g for a normal man.
- adamnemecek 8y agoAnother solution is making smaller portions. The sizes restaurants give you are ginormous.
- koolba 8y agoRestaurant portions of of crappy food (high calorie, low nutrient, heavily over salted) are large. Restaurant portions of food you’d actually do well to eat on a regular basis aren’t large. They’re usually tiny compared to DIY at home. Order a “pasta with scallops” for an extreme example of how many you actually get vs what you could get if you cooked it yourself.
- lostapathy 8y agoThe amount of scallops is probably reasonable, but the pound and a half of pasta you get is not.
- sixstringtheory 8y agoRidiculous idea to downvote. I almost never finish restaurant meals, I’ll take the second half for lunch the next day or give it to someone on the walk home. But suggesting portion control would be advocating more personal responsibility, so maybe that explains peoples’ “disagreement.” So much easier to toss in the trash, right?
- PunchTornado 8y agoI always feel bad when asking to pack the leftovers at the restaurant. is it rude or a sign of being poor? I'm unsure.
- mikestew 8y agoIf it weren’t expected, restaurants wouldn’t keep stacks of to-go boxes lying around. As for a sign of being poor, who gives a shit? I’m obviously wealthy enough to eat at your restaurant. And if you’d like me to share some of that wealth again, you’ll box thus shit up without comment. But enough anonymous internet tough guy talk, I’ve been taking home food for decades and no one has ever uttered a word. Olive Garden to $200/person, it’ll get boxed with a smile. Hell, waitstaff often come around and ask if you want a box (which I sometimes take to mean, “I’d like to turn this table, Slowpoke.” <g>).
- rrdharan 8y agoI wonder if this has been replicated - wasn't immediately obvious to me, and I'm now perhaps overly suspicious of any and all food science claims after the Wansink disaster: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/19/17879102/brian-wansink-cornell-food-brand-lab-retractions-jama https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/19/17879102/br...
- fouc 8y agoThe real innovation here is - to-go bags. Just keep a spare zip-loc bag in your pocket, ready for the sudden and embarrassing situation when you are full with food left on the plate.
- nraynaud 8y agoI feel like that, I am from a violent family who would force me to finish my plate, now it’s very hard for me not to finish at the restaurant.
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- raymondgh 8y agoThe almond experiment sounds ridiculous! Asking people to imagine eating ten chocololate-covered almonds then to guess how much they’d like to eat another after their hypothetical consumption? Does this produce results as reliable as actually eating the almonds in the first place?
- PunchTornado 8y agothe leftovers are food for my enemies <- my mom so I always had to finish.
- gumby 8y agoOur household rule was "if you put it on your plate you had to finish it; if someone else put it on your plate you don't have to" (with some parental modulation such as "yes you are having some of these Brussels sprouts" or "finish the beans before you go for seconds"). Parents don't like to see food wasted (it took money to buy and time to prepare and the alternatives aren't good for kids) but these rules were also on us: don't put an unreasonable amount of food on the kids' plates.
- balfirevic 8y agoThat makes sense as a training mechanism for kids to not just overfill their plates regardless of how hungry they are. But it is important to realize that food that you force someone to eat after they feel properly full is worse than wasted. Not only have you already spent time and money to prepare it, which you won't get back, but you also just made their stomach ache. And you have taken whatever little agency they have as a kid - now they freaking don't even get to decide how hungry they are. (This is not directed at you, as you seem to have a reasonable system in place. Your comment just seemed like a good place to plug this rant) :)
- gumby 8y agoThey do learn to have agency: think plan ahead and make your own decision. Live with the consequences of your decision. As I noted every decision is modulated by parental intervention — if a kid made an obvious mistake, possibly intervene early “are you sure you want six bao? Just take a couple — you can always have more” or late “ok, but see the problem? Next time let’s be more careful.” Yeah, parenting is non-algorithmic, and once (if?) you get good at it it’s too late to do it again.
- Kalium 8y ago> Yeah, parenting is non-algorithmic, and once (if?) you get good at it it’s too late to do it again. Arguably multi-generational households with grandparents on hand are able to take advantage of this. This is perhaps not as useful as it was centuries ago, due to how fast society and the situations a family might face have shifted.
- finaliteration 8y agoMy wife’s grandparents are very much the “you aren’t leaving until you clear your plate” kind of people and it’s given her mother a lot of anxiety around food and weight. I grew up in a family of 7 where food was scarce and some nights you were lucky to get anything at all for dinner so I’m also inclined to eat way too much at each meal. Because of this (and for other reasons) we never ever make our daughter clear her plate. If she says she’s full she can walk away. We also keep healthy snacks around the house (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, a very small amount of “junk” food) so she does “graze” throughout the day. But we don’t force food habits on her because I don’t want her growing up with a complex around food or her weight. It’s more important to me that she make healthy nutrition choices overall and keeps in touch with her body about when she’s hungry. I feel like pushing for a clean plate goes against that.
- ixtli 8y agoI have exactly the same story. My grandparents gave my mother a borderline eating disorder. Happily she became a nutritionist and helps lots of people … but the depression-era trauma still affects us today.
- bonestamp2 8y agoSame story here too. It took me a long time to untrain myself from clearing my plate, so we try not to let our kids think that the quantity of food available should affect how much food they eat. It sounds so obvious when it's phrased that way.
- Eric_WVGG 8y agoMy parents were like you (no pressure) and that worked really well across my childhood; then when I struck out on my own, I had a couple "Ramen years" that changed my habits into a clean-plater. Fortunately my metabolism is pretty okay, but it's starting to catch up with me, I now have to make a conscious effort to not over-portion, etc.
- black-tea 8y agoSo it sounds like you're happy if she becomes a "healthy fat". Has it really come to this?
- dreeves 8y agoBeeminder taking this to characteristic extremes: https://blog.beeminder.com/waisted https://blog.beeminder.com/waisted
- gnicholas 8y agoThe finish-your-plate mentality can be especially troublesome in a household where food disappears quickly. I had an older brother and a dad who ate a lot, so if I didn’t take enough food in my first serving then I might not get any more. It took me well into college to realize that (especially in a dining hall) I could serve myself a conservative-sized portion and get more later if I was still hungry.
- ourmandave 8y agoThe best that ever happened to my health was gaining complete control over what I eat. I eat only what I want, when I want. And how much I want. The trade off, of course, is dying alone. But hey, health!
- rootusrootus 8y agoIt seems odd those would be related.
- gnode 8y ago> dying alone I don't think it's unreasonable to have a partner and eat differently to them. It's pretty common where someone has a dietary requirement.
- pluc 8y agoSo either you eat yourself into a depression or you get depressed because your constant throwing away is fucking up [your ability to stay on] the planet. Such great times to be alive.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoMy grandparents were poor Oklahoman migrants. You ate your food when you had it; you and your neighbors were close to starvation. You cooked your meat (when you had it) thououghly because it wasn't always fresh. You kept every little thing so you have something later. These behaviors are passed down through generations, but what was adaptive is now maladaptive.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 8y agoSimple rule: if you put food on your own plate you should eat it all, if someone else puts food on your plate you are allowed to leave as much or as little of it as you want. That way you will hopefully learn to take only as much food as you will want to eat.
- air7 8y agoI've come to believe that singular scientific papers should be consider "only slightly above noise". Like ants leaving weak pheromones when they find food: It works well in scale but close to random in the particular case. I feel this is even more true nowadays, when the marginal utility of improved rigorousness is so low. This article reads to me like a PR piece for the (marketing) professor more than an honest showcasing of scientific findings: The results are very relatable and feel intuitively true so as a reader it's easy to pick it up as "ammunition" for future family dinner discussions and thus are also good for the media to publish. So there's no need for rigorous science. (I mean come on, "participants were asked to imagine eating a certain number of cookies (...) and then asked how much they wanted one more cookie.")
- Fricken 8y agoIf I go out for dinner and get served a big meal, I'm going to stuff myself silly and if I eat breakfast at all the next morning it'll be a banana or something. It really isn't hard to balance out your calorie intake across meals. I have a hard time believing that the insidious 'clean plate' mentality is the real culprit behind why so many people are fat.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThis was annoying growing up in a household with a stay-at-home european mother who cooked huge, delicious, but calorie-dense meals. We were taught to always clean our plates, but were expected to say "when" while the chef served and never actually stopped immediately upon hearing "when". In adulthood though, having completely restructured my diet to something devoid of calorie-dense, quickly-digested fillers, none of this matters. I never have leftovers of whatever I'm eating, just to avoid the hassle; food going bad, or simply less cleanup. It's of no lasting negative consequence to my weight. I think this issue is largely a red herring as a result. What you're eating dictates the significance of how much. If you fix the what, how much becomes irrelevant.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoAn abundance of food and a willingness to take more than you need if the cause. "Clean plate" would not be an issue if there wasn't too much already on the plate. Furthermore, what's on the plate matters as well. Three fried pieces of chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy is not the same as broiled chicken with steamed vegetables. I suspect - based on anecdotal evidence - people who often over eat also too often eat badly.
- makecheck 8y agoIt also happens in reverse: you tend to fill the size of plate you have, the size of glass, etc. At buffets I either pick small plates or intentionally pick a small number of items regardless of how much of the plate is used. With soda for instance I eventually realized that the main reason I was drinking a certain amount was a combination of the cup size and the straw. I switched to tiny cups that I drank from directly and found I could easily make that last a meal and have some left. Now I barely drink soda.
- code_duck 8y agoI was affected by a similar philosophy for a long time. For me, it’s an aversion to wastefulness for the theoretical sake of ecology and economics. The logical flaw I’m seeing now is that overeating to the point of obesity or indigestion is more of a waste and throwing the food away, and what I need to do is purchase less or give it to someone else. Even worse, I have celiac and an esophagus condition that is much worse with overeating, and habitually at restaurants I’d clean my plate because I thought getting a takeout box was a waste, but I did not want to see the food be thrown out. I also see a similar pattern with containers of packaged food. I’m much more likely to finish that last one or two cookies or handfuls of chip crumbs and leave them for later. I’m not sure that this study contains any new useful advice, but it is a real phenomenon.
- miguelrochefort 8y agoI never leave anything on the plate, unless it's so bad I wouldn't eat it even if I was starving. I do this even at all-you-can-eat buffets. To avoid overeating, I only eat once a day.
- option_greek 8y agoI never really understood why one shouldn't waste food. On other hand there are several reasons why one might waste a bit of it (may be it wasn't as tasty as expected/you overestimated your hunger). It's not like food prices fluctuate based on everyone wasting certain portion of food. Global food prices are usually dependent on the supply side more than demand side.
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- linkmotif 8y agoI'll never totally give up the clean plate mentality but at the same time, giving up the clean plate mentality was instrumental for me losing weight. Just put less on your plate. Then add more, judiciously.
- your-nanny 8y agojust get smaller plates. large plates encourage over eating by encouraging you to put more food on them than is reasonable.
- fotbr 8y agoThat was the key for me. I switched to smaller plates, and I quit gaining weight. It helped enforce portion control, which I am horribly bad at if left to my own devices.
- rayiner 8y agoComing from south asia, I wish cleaning your plate was enough in my family. If you don’t take seconds and thirds it’s an insult to the host.
- black-tea 8y agoWhen you eat only two meals a day, every plate is clean. Trust me. You shouldn't eat anything at all outside of meal time.
- alleskleber 8y agoThe reminds me of the "bottomless bowls" experiment [0]. I know it from a TV show where it was recreated a few years ago but it was actually a real study. > Using self-refilling soup bowls, this study examined whether visual cues related to portion size can influence intake volume without altering either estimated intake or satiation. > Participants who were unknowingly eating from self-refilling bowls ate more soup than those eating from normal soup bowls. However, despite consuming 73% more, they did not believe they had consumed more, nor did they perceive themselves as more sated than those eating from normal bowls. This was unaffected by BMI. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15761167 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15761167
- Markoff 8y agothe takeaway it's to order children portions when eating outside and use smaller plates when at home