It seems we’re doomed to be fat. I know this might not be what you want to hear when you’ve just come off a Christmas caloric binge, but a recent article in the Annals of Internal Medicine shocked me. Just when you thought the only safe nutritional path left was to make your own food, it turns out that even our old beloved cookbooks have been betraying us, packing more calories into old-time favorite recipes.
According to the article, which examined 18 recipes in successive editions of The Joy of Cooking published over the past 70 years, calories per serving has increased by two-thirds, from an average of 268 calories in 1936 to 437 calories in 2006. These are for the same recipes! The difference was attributed to portion size and to the actual ingredients. For example, the same amount of ingredients that formerly made 12 waffles now only makes 6. And recipes today might include more sugar, butter, and add-ins, such as raisins and nuts, to assuage our increasing cravings for sweetness and fat.
Throw in the increasing size of plates and utensils and you’ve got even more danger of portion distortion. According to a July 2007 article in the the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, plate size has increased by 36% since 1960. With bigger plates, there’s a lot more room to pile on those bigger portions. Even well-meaning experts aren’t immune to the deception of the bigger dinner plate. In a September 2007 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, nutrition experts, when given bigger bowls, unknowingly upped their food consumption by 31%. Similarly, bigger spoons led to a 14.5% increase in serving size ingested.
So is it any wonder that average daily caloric intake is up? It is, and it’s awful. According to this month’s edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Americans ate an average of 500 calories more per day between the early 1970s and the early 2000s. Children’s caloric consumption increased by an average of 350 calories in the same time. This might explain why Americans gained, on average, 19 pounds in the same period, while children gained nine.
So how about those New Year’s Resolutions? Smaller plates, bowls, and spoons? And watch for the good old cookbooks. Those calories are coming at you from everywhere!
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See? It’s not my fault, right??!!!
Very interesting.
We don’t use cookbooks that much, and our (unsophisticated) diet is much the same as it was years ago: meat/chicken, rice or potatoes or noodles, green or yellow cooked veggie. fresh salad. mostly from our garden, and a small bowl of ice cream/cookie for dessert.
What a delight to hear your thoughts!
Hey–great to see your name in the comments section! I hope you’re well– was sorry to have missed the party last month, but had the weekend shift at the hospital (ugh!).