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I'm with Irene on this one. I find larger portions unhealthy. You also can't always take the extra with you since many times when I'm eating out, I'm heading somewhere else besides home.
Also in general. restaurants that serve larger portions are substituting quality for quantity. Not all, but most.
Unhealthy yes, do we have free will however? yes we do, we don't have to eat all that food.... but when its sitting there in front of your face and its nice, hot and juicy its hard to say no. lol.
Plus its a little sad how we waste the most food and people around the world and even in this country are starving.
I don't really see the problem with getting more food (or of anything really) for your money. It's weird that many Canadians are framing this in negative terms.
Obviously for some people this is an issue due to an inability to control themselves but that's still really beside the point.
Even if you made the price of wine one tenth of what it is today I still wouldn't drink ten times more than I do today just because it's cheaper.
I don't think anyone is framing it in negative terms at all. I think it is a pretty rational explanation for why obesity rates are higher in the U.S. If that is positive to you AJ that is fine but I think you'd have to be pretty naïve to think that living in a society whereby generally everything is slightly bigger has nothing to do with greater obesity rates and nothing to do with lower life expectancy rates for the average person by almost 3 full years.
A lot of those extra calories are consumed simply because the portion sizes are off and greater than required. Of course we have control over what we consume but I think you overlook how even that extra 20 percent larger size of Ragu does contribute to added caloric intake. If the bottle was 20 percent smaller, you wouldn't really miss it but since it is there you just dump it all in.
If you buy a bag of chips at the store - you probably aren't going to meter your intake to a serving - you eat the bag and bigger the bag - the more you eat and this shouldn't be overlooked - its simply human nature.
This also shouldn't be framed as a Canadian or American thing... I'm sure there are Canadians who would prefer larger portions and Americans who would prefer more metered portions.
In regards to the food portion comments, I also noticed this when I visited the U.S. The food portions are much larger there. For the same price in Canada, we get much smaller portions here. No complaints over that though, it's good to be healthier.
You can say it is a better value in the U.S - but the portion sizes are often way more than you need and absolutely has to be a reason why the U.S has higher obesity rates than Canada. I don't know how anyone can dispute that.
I'm just not convinced by the portion sizes argument. It may make a bit of difference. If everyone in both countries ate all their meals in diners, then sure. But we all know that's not the case.
I'll probably be hated on like crazy for this comment, but it occurs to me that one reason the US has a higher obesity rate than Canada is the racial makeup of the two countries. A far higher proportion of the US population consists of people from races or ethnic groups that tend to greater obesity--Hispanic and black. And a much higher proportion of the Canadian population is Asian, a group that tends towards noticeably less obesity.
This alone could possibly account for the difference in obesity rates between the two countries. The US rate is 33% and that is not good. But Canada's rate is 28%. The UK and Australia are also at 28%. Are any of them doing stunningly well in this regard?
I'm just not convinced by the portion sizes argument. It may make a bit of difference. If everyone in both countries ate all their meals in diners, then sure. But we all know that's not the case.
I'll probably be hated on like crazy for this comment, but it occurs to me that one reason the US has a higher obesity rate than Canada is the racial makeup of the two countries. A far higher proportion of the US population consists of people from races or ethnic groups that tend to greater obesity--Hispanic and black. And a much higher proportion of the Canadian population is Asian, a group that tends towards noticeably less obesity.
This alone could possibly account for the difference in obesity rates between the two countries. The US rate is 33% and that is not good. But Canada's rate is 28%. The UK and Australia are also at 28%. Are any of them doing stunningly well in this regard?
Not sure about the groups you mentioned, but if we're going there, I do know that people of French origin also tend to be smaller than people of Anglo-Germanic origins.
I don't think anyone is framing it in negative terms at all. I think it is a pretty rational explanation for why obesity rates are higher in the U.S. If that is positive to you AJ that is fine but I think you'd have to be pretty naïve to think that living in a society whereby generally everything is slightly bigger has nothing to do with greater obesity rates and nothing to do with lower life expectancy rates for the average person by almost 3 full years.
A lot of those extra calories are consumed simply because the portion sizes are off and greater than required. Of course we have control over what we consume but I think you overlook how even that extra 20 percent larger size of Ragu does contribute to added caloric intake. If the bottle was 20 percent smaller, you wouldn't really miss it but since it is there you just dump it all in.
If you buy a bag of chips at the store - you probably aren't going to meter your intake to a serving - you eat the bag and bigger the bag - the more you eat and this shouldn't be overlooked - its simply human nature.
This also shouldn't be framed as a Canadian or American thing... I'm sure there are Canadians who would prefer larger portions and Americans who would prefer more metered portions.
Of course it's being framed as a negative by people - you just did!
I picked up 2 prescriptions yesterday from Walgreens and the total was 88 cents. It all depends on your health insurance, how much you pay and how good your employer is.
As far as food portions, it all depends on where you eat and how. Not everyone in the US eats at Denny’s, and there is plenty of unhealthy food served in Canada as well.
So the solution to the obesity epidemic is to jack up the price of food, or at least offer less food per dollar?
Really?
I dunno how much mileage we'd get out of that.
A large bag of brand-name chips at my local grocery store is about the same price as a box of clementines from Morocco.
I think the main problems are more a lack of exercise, bad eating habits and the absence of what I would call "food culture".
Not the total solution, but a start. It's mainly junk food that is served in huge portions.
People who get used to those portions, continue to eat them as normal. That, and a car centric culture doesn't help. Either does corn syrup or sugars in too many foods.
I agree a food culture, with a focus on some physical activity, AND smaller portions overall make for a less obese society.
Maybe portion size would help for those who were taught to clean their plates. I was never taught that growing up - I ate until I was full, not stuffed.and we were never poor,moron a food standpoint - no one on a farm was food-poor.
But I think that an abundance of food has always meant wealth, and if one is entertaining, then also hospitality, as in "help yourself. There's plenty more where that came from." And particularly after the world wars, when rationing was still in effect in Europe, North America, with its wide open spaces and abundance of food, stuck to the country ways in matters of hospitality, and loaded their tables. The trouble was that people stopped working as hard as they used to but still ate the same amount of food.
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