Restaurant portion sizes are huge

[Paq]

Does anyone else find this? Went to a pub/restaurant last night and the portion sizes were insane. I managed a third of my salad, brought the rest home and shared it with DH for lunch today. DD got through half her curry and 6'1" hollow legged DH just about managed to finish his risotto but then felt overstuffed all night.

going for low hanging fruit on a complex issues, which happens to conveniently link to 'we want restaurants to do things our way'.

Low hanging fruit is still there to be picked and eaten. It is just as good as that higher up the tree and has the added benefit of being accessible. Why not pick the low hanging fruit first and use the appreciation of how good it is to incentivise you to go and get the ladders out next to venture further up the tree to reach for more?

It's an approach I have found to be extremely successful. Some people describe it as taking advantage of 'marginal gains', do what is easy first and let those small successes accumulate into greater success encouraging further efforts.

It's not responsibility of restaurants to deal with the fact your were worried about school dinners as a child and felt you had to clear your plate.

Good restaurants make their money catering to their customer's needs. The psychology of eating is important when designing menus.

The model of deliberately creating an unhealthy need in people to eat far beyond their nutritional requirements in one sitting just to make money is deeply corrupt and manipulative.

How can a restaurant possibly know your historical food issues @grasstreeleaf
Do you submit a carer plan and risk assessment prior to making a reservation? Restaurant is a for profit business they cannot be to cater to or know the your past and current issues with food
I see you’re using emotive and pejorative words again to describe food and attributing dysfunction to other people eating habits. It’s highly inappropriate, to be so pejorative. Sure you have issues and niche value system regard food, it’s not a universal held belief system

@EspressoDoubleShot you need to get out more. The issues I have had are not that niche. They are a commonly observed phenomenon in this country, if you read through this thread other posters have mentioned the same things.

Restaurant is a for profit businesses
So is the fashion industry, yet they have changed due to public pressure regarding how they represented what is aspirational to women.

Service industries are there to cater to customer needs. It is fairly recently that more dietary needs have been more widely catered for, such as gluten free, vegan and nut free. Having smaller portions/lower calorie meals is along the same vein and not that much of an unusual request. The food industry only too readily has been keen to label foods a 'healthy option' and has made money from this. I think the next step is for this to happen within eating establishments with freshly cooked meals and for those that use preprepared food I'm sure there are already suppliers that could supply them.

Grass you are habitually and repeatedly peddling your dysfunctional ideas about food and calories
When You are out you’ve said you discuss calories in restaurant
Prior to going out, you have said you count calories
You have posted pejorative terms about how other people eat and their inability to curtail appetite when dining out

@EspressoDoubleShot

So? calories is not a taboo subject it is a unit of measurement. Nutrition is not a particularly graphic or controversial subject.

I enjoy food, l like cooking. I enjoy eating new dishes. I know enough about nutrition and can cook well enough to cook good, sustaining, satisfying meals suitable for most requirements. I also use this knowledge to help me keep my weight at a healthy level and I do this successfully.

Is 'pejorative' your new favourite word or something?

Calories themselves isn't a taboo subject.

Someone who openly says they have ongoing food hangups, have had to overcome food issues from childhood, obsesses over calories, wants restaurants to run to their preference of sub 600 calorie meals, seems to assume there us a secret if other slim people eat more more them, considers themselves to be the benchmark of health and nutrition from which everyone else should measure against, and repeatedly speaks disparaging about anyone consuming food outside of their very narrow idea of acceptable food intake does does sound a bit usual.

Counting calories is not obsessing over them. That is what they are designed for as a quantitive measurements.

Hang ups? Not really. Nothing that I can't cope with. Nothing that stops me enjoying myself. Everyone has aspects of their lives they reflect upon. I do find health and nutrition and interesting subject and am fascinated by it. Enjoy thinking about it. I think about it and puzzle over aspects of it and enjoy observing the affects and qualities of different foods. Foods as medicine, how well foods sustain, how we store fat, glycogen and how we burn it, etc etc I enjoy designing new meals to different requirements, how tastes make us feel. It's just all interesting to me.

Counting calories to a point where you decide you know what's better for other people than they do is a bit obsessive.

Deciding people must have a secret if they are slim build and fit but eat more that you is a bit obsessive. Why you'd assume that rather than accept the obvious that their body is different to yours is beyond me, unless your oddly obsessed with being slim/other people's food.
Deciding that meals should be under 600 calories as standard because you count calories and think that's how the world should run is a little obsessive.
Deciding that the only way runners could be enjoying good old pub grub is if they 'devote' lots of time to 'outtraining' their so called 'overindulgence' (as opposed to you know, enjoying a pub meal with friends without fixating about food the way you do) is a bit obsessive. The default qssumption that a meal must be exercised off to make it acceptable is a telling attitude and isn't terribly healthy.
Viewing other people's food intake in relation to but I'm fit and healthy and I do all this running and and couldn't possibly eat half what they do is a bit obsessive. Again, the human race is varied with different builds, different preferences, different appetites, different metabolisms, different fitness levels. It doesn't seem unusual to me that others will eat more and others will eat less than me and that they may eat more/less than me and have different fitness levels. 🤷‍♀️
Making arguments that everyone needs restaurant portion sizes limiting to your preferences because some people might feel they have to clear a plate is a bit of an obsessive view.

Going on about how you know so much more about nutrition and food and exercise is a bit obsessive. Do you think you're alone in this, or struggle to consider that other people with different habits / other people who believe in not policing strangers' food choices couldn't know as much?

It sounds like you've found something that works for you and that's great, but you seem to have a bizarre need to decide you know best for everyone else.
Plenty of people enjoy food, make the right choices for them, manage to look at the vast range of eateries out there (with vastly different offerings and vastly different portion sizes) and manage to make decisions about what they want to eat, and when. I'm not sure why this all needs to change because some people who eat so little that (despite a vast array of eateries) they apparently can't find anywhere serving small enough portions don't like what's on offer.

@LolaSmiles

No. I want a choice to be available to have smaller portions/ lower calorie meals. Just as people want a vegan choice or vegetarian choice or gluten free choice. Like many vegans and vegetarians I am happy for there to be meals on the menu that would not be my choice. Just as I am happy for foods I don't like to be on the menu, such as pate. I am quite happy for other people to make different choices to me. However I will defend my reasoning for making the choices I do if they are criticised.

I am interested in nutrition and different body types and burn rates but that doesn't mean I judge other people, I am just interested.

It seems on here that if you make different choices to other people they see it as a criticism of them.

I will defend my choices but I can and do that without criticism of other people's choices made in the context of their own lives and preferences which may well be different to mine.

For someone who says they only want choice and don't judge others, a lot of your posts suggest otherwise.

Wanting choice, but also saying restaurants should limit portions to 600 calories and complaining that they should be largely salad and non starchy vegetarian.
Not judging, but people have to outtrain their overindulgence and must have disordered eating.
🤷‍♀️

Plenty of people enjoy food, make the right choices for them, manage to look at the vast range of eateries out there (with vastly different offerings and vastly different portion sizes) and manage to make decisions about what they want to eat, and when. I'm not sure why this all needs to change because some people who eat so little that (despite a vast array of eateries) they apparently can't find anywhere serving small enough portions don't like what's on offer.

Well, time will tell, won't it. There are people that agree with me, on this thread and in real life.

It seems on here that if you make different choices to other people they see it as a criticism of them
Hardly.
As has been said several times by many posters, if people want to eat less then they can.

Wanting choice, but also saying restaurants should limit portions to 600 calories and complaining that they should be largely salad and non starchy vegetarian.

Just outlining what sort of choice I would like made available amongst others which no doubt you would choose from. @LolaSmiles.

Not judging, but people have to outtrain their overindulgence and must have disordered eating.

Not really. Without exercise I only burn circa 1400 calories per day. If I consumed more than that amount some would class it as overeating or overindulgence because I would be eating more calories that I burned. But it's not much to play with for someone who likes a variety of food. If I consumed only that people would question that too. So excuse me, I exercise to help with this. I exercise also for pure enjoyment, for health and fitness but also to give me a bit more leeway with what I eat.

I'm not judgemental about the reasons for exercise because exercise is good for lots of reasons.

But hang on grasstreeleaf, you've spent pages going on about how much you care about obesity and how currently restaurant portions are causing obesity problems (despite a huge range of eateries and range of portion sizes at different venues so people can choose where to book).
I thought people had to have a special secret to eat a typical portion, or devote lots of time to exercise it off because a meal out portion is so very problematic.

You care that much about obesity and how eating out needs changing for the good of the nation's health, but you now want to keep the very thing you claim is evil and the source of most people's problems. Makes total sense.

Not really. Without exercise I only burn circa 1400 calories per day. If I consumed more than that amount some would class it as overeating or overindulgence because I would be eating more calories that I burned. But it's not much to play with for someone who likes a variety of food. If I consumed only that people would question that too. So excuse me, I exercise to help with this. I exercise also for pure enjoyment, for health and fitness but also to give me a bit more leeway with what I eat.

I'm not judgemental about the reasons for exercise because exercise is good for lots of reasons
But nobody was talking about YOUR exercise.

When I pointed out my running club enjoy pub meals together you said that was possible because they'd be devoting time to "outtrain their overindulgence".
For someone who doesn't judge and doesn't have food hangups it's really quite judgey and (as you've nicely illustrated above) is grounded in a belief that because YOU might do a certain thing therefore everyone else must do that too.

Do you not understand choices @LolaSmiles.? I simply want choices available that are suitable for my needs and those like me alongside choices that are suitable for people with different needs. I have said it throughout this thread.

I want more choice not less. Currently there are no suitable meal choices in restaurants that are suitable for a substantial sector of people's (those like me) requirements. I just want to even that up.

For someone who doesn't judge and doesn't have food hangups it's really quite judgey and (as you've nicely illustrated above) is grounded in a belief that because YOU might do a certain thing therefore everyone else must do that too.

I can compare and reflect on similarities and differences between other people and myself without judging them. 🤷‍♀️

Oh good grief. Another competitive undereating post
Seriously bore off 🥱

As has been said several times by many posters, if people want to eat less then they can.

Oh if only that were true we wouldn't have an obesity crisis. By ascribing a healthy food intake down to personal choice is telling people that it entirely their own fault they are fat, and that they continue to choose to be fat even when it causes them serious health problems.

The reluctance / resistance to tackle obesity at a systemic level is interesting. The marketing bods have done a good job on all of us to make us determined to cling onto access to cheap, calorific, nutritionally empty food, whatever the consequences.

I'm currently working away from home and I'm trying to lose weight.
Sorry but the only way to do that is to watch the food types/calories to some extent.

The hotel meals (Ibis) are the usual catering processed stodge - burgers, chips, pasta, puddings. Presumably because of Covid, the grilled fish and salads had been taken off the menu. And the breakfast buffet is wall to wall pastries, processed cereals and fried stuff - I'm getting bored of scrambled egg.

I have had to picnic from M&S chilled food to go.

I appreciate most hotel users prefer the "bloke food" but it's gutting when there isn't even one fresh or healthy option on the menu. And most pubs, restauants and chain eateries are the same.

oh if only that were true we wouldn't have an obesity crisis. By ascribing a healthy food intake down to personal choice is telling people that it entirely their own fault they are fat, and that they continue to choose to be fat even when it causes them serious health problems
Except that's not what I said. I've been saying obesity is complex through the thread. This thread isn't about strategies to address the complex issues surrounding obesity, it's a bog standard mumsnet look how little I eat thread.

I said about people being free to eat less with regards to people wanting to eat less. If people want to eat a smaller portion they can. Nobody is stopping you, or grass, or anyone else from eating less.

Anyway despite all the moralising about obesity and the apparent need to shrink portions to 600 calories for our own good, grass is now sating existing portions are fine to stay.

he reluctance / resistance to tackle obesity at a systemic level is interesting. The marketing bods have done a good job on all of us to make us determined to cling onto access to cheap, calorific, nutritionally empty food, whatever the consequences.

You've got to love it when threads on any topic reach but you would say that, the world has conned you and you're too thick to notice, if you were smarter like me you'd agree with me.

grass is now sating existing portions are fine to stay.

@LolaSmiles

I have maintained this throughput the whole thread!!!!!I repeatedly insisted I only wanted a choice, an option of a smaller / less calorific portion alongside the usual standard meal size and composition. Reread my posts if you don't believe me.

I don't think it's that complicated a viewpoint to advocate a choice that is more suitable for those with lower calorific needs whilst recognising and accepting other people will want to choose larger more re calorific meals and being happy for them to do so. Just because I don't hold a completely polarised view doesn't make my points lack consistency.

Yes, I will defend my own choice and explain the validity of it when it is criticised. However, that doesn't mean I am judging people who choose differently to me detrimentally.