Appropriate Food Portions

Recently, I ran across the fun read "Finding Betty Crocker" and was reading a page out of the original Betty Crocker Cookbook, that spoke about Meat Portions as it referred to stretching the meat that each family was rationed post WWII. That got me to thinking about our portions today. I cringe when I see someone force there child to finish a happy meal that has almost 1,000 calories or a heaping plate of food when I know that child's belly can only process so much at one time. To note, I am not against withholding food from children. But serving up and helping them to understand appropriate portions is an important part of my job as a parent. And my responsibility to taking care of myself is to eat in appropriate portions --- most of the time;)

After a little research, I found a great resource through the myplate.gov. Listing normal foods and appropriate portions. I am still shocked to see that appropriate beef strip steak is only 5oz. I would challenge most people to find this portion already sliced and available for purchase at the average grocer. Instead, the portions that are available to us to purchase make us feel like we are depriving ourselves if we do not eat the entire thing in one meal. Unfortunately, that leads us to overeating... and to where we are today with an ever growing obesity rate and portion distortion that is out of control.