Afternoon Tea - how can anyone eat it all?

This is mumsnet where everyone is teeny tiny and exists on inhaling the contents of the fridge once a fortnight.
in the real world would see it as a treat and enjoy every mouthful

Afternoon tea is extremely gluttonous.

If I had to have one I'd just have a bite of a sandwich to keep me full until dinner time the next day.

I love an afternoon tea at a posh hotel. They will give you a doggy bag on request, but I have never needed one.

LOL

I've never had an afternoon tea that has filled me to the point I can't eat all of it. The portion sizes are not very big, overall I reckon you probably get a full sized sandwich, scone and a full sized bit of cake if you added it all together.

However I'm sure they will give you a box or clingfilm some bits if you wanted to take it home or maybe other people will happily eat it.

💪🏻

In my experience the cakes and scones tend to be small and the sandwiches which is my favorite part are tiny. Most of the cakes tend to be quite light too.

Any place I have gone for afternoon tea have given out boxes at the end to take any leftover.

The food is tiny

I've had some afternoon teas and they have been big enough to eat in one sitting without being over faced. Also they are ate over a couple of hours so I'm not troughing everything immediately. It's nicely spaced out with a g and t in between. However if I go to one that is huge proportions I have not problem asking for a box to take away. ( Although my best doggie bags are usually from the Indian!)

Absolutely! Afternoon Tea without scones is, I'm sure, against the law or something (or should be!). 😁

Yes scones are great though most of the Afternoon teas that I‘ve had have offered scones and savoury items like quiche.

I won’t hear a word said against scones. Scones with cream and jam. Delicious.

Me too. It's the best. Also an excellent jacket potato filling.

People don’t eat afternoon tea routinely. It’s a treat as you say. So your comments make no sense.

In the last year I have had three afternoon teas: Ritz, Claridges and one in Soho. My BMI is 19. It’s such a silly and simplistic way of thinking that a special afternoon tea is the cause of obesity.

I could do without the scone in an afternoon tea, to be honest, it's the dullest bit and often a wee bit stodgy. The ones with mini quiche or other savoury canapés sound much nicer but it's always scones where I live.

I love a coronation chicken sandwich.

When I take my mother out for afternoon tea we order for 4 😳 this is after years of being disappointed by them. We then have to face the awkward 'no, we didn't order for 4 by mistake. We know what we are doing' conversation.
Competitive under eating is soo annoying. The amount of times I was promised 'there's so much food honestly, you'll be stuffed'. Lies. All lies.
Enjoy OP. I love a good afternoon tea.

Edited to add, I dont eat for the rest of the day. Well, occasionally will have supper. Or a light tea. Just to tide me over till morning.

Exactly what I think. Not enough savoury but too much sweet!

Never been to one that I’ve been too full to if not finish then at least try everything.
Usually they have a minimum of one gross sandwich that no one eats (coronation chicken 🤮 or anything with flappy bits of tomato 🤮) - I can certainly manage 2 slices of finger sandwich (so less than half an actual sandwich as there are no crusts), 3 mouthfuls of cake and a scone.
Sometimes there have been leftovers but not enough to bother with boxing up and bringing home.

My bingo dabber is on fire!

Can ’half’ the country being ‘obese’ due to the ‘wild overindulgence’ of doll sized sandwiches and scones be the new ‘let them eat cake’?

I could quite easily manage it.
I wouldn't have lunch beforehand though.
But I'm in robust health and not a frail little thing who's afraid of food.

I'm greedy and I usually don't have anything to eat earlier in the day.

It's not hard to understand that some people might not want to eat it all. That's fine.

It's more that the OP thinks it must be completely impossible that anyone would be able to and is clearly keen to judge those of us who can.

It's fine not to have a massive appetite, lots if people don't - and like you say, some people prefer to graze rather than eat big meals in one sitting. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

When people talk about 'competitive undereating threads' they mean the ones where people feel the need to be incredibly performative about it, express shock (as the OP did) that others can eat more than them, and use negative terms about eating like 'stuffing', 'scoffing', 'gobbling' etc.

There was a thread recently where someone said that they had some apple slices and hummus for their breakfast every day and that this was a 'nutritious, filling meal' that kept them going until the evening and that they couldn't possibly manage to eat lunch, even though they did 15,000 steps and a Pilates class every day. They were keen to suggest that this meant they had a much healthier attitude to food than people who could manage to eat more than a side salad if they went out for lunch with a friend. That is a great example of Mumsnet competitive undereating.

I have some experience of being around people with eating disorders, and honestly, a lot of the food threads on Mumsnet are full of people who are in denial about their disordered eating, and the language they use around food and the details they feel the need to include are pretty much exactly the same as the sort of language that you hear from people with anorexia and orthorexia. I'm not saying this is the case with the OP at all! But there are certainly people on Mumsnet who are using food threads, consciously or unconsciously, as an outlet for an obsessive/disordered attitude to food intake.

If you go for a decent one like the Ritz then it's all you can eat. They don't call it that, but it is.

I want to go book another Afternoon tea now thanks to this thread. My last was in the Lake District so I can’t return there right now. Anyone know of a good place in Glasgow?