Implode Exploded Portions

I think we've all heard about how portion sizes in this country have exploded in size and proportion over the past twenty years. Sandwiches stacked higher. Burgers thicker. Steaks heavier. Biggie. Super sized. King size. Even our drinks! At Starbucks, all three sizes of drinks – tall, grande and venti – essentially translate to mean “large, larger and largest.” And it's not just with junk food. Even salads nowadays come with half a cup of dressing on the side – who knows how much is used when it's dressed for you. Bottom line, part of America's weight battle is recognizing and de-internalizing the portions that are now quite literally shoved down our throats.

I tend to avoid fast food and a lot of junk food, but I fall victim too. I noticed this a few weeks ago when going to Met Cafe in Washington DC to get my customary nigiri sushi lunch. Nigiri is pretty good for me. I hate soy sauce as a condiment, so with me we're talking some rice, some fish and some seaweed salad. I try to avoid the rolls that often have mayo or fried items and stick to plain, raw fish. I used to grab the container and fill it up to what I thought I needed for lunch. And I would eat it all. It usually cost a little over $10 by weight.

But then I noticed that these containers were enormous and that there were much smaller containers right behind them. I skeptically grabbed one and filled IT up – 6, maybe 7 skinny pieces of fish, and a little mound of seaweed. And it was a perfect amount. I did not get hungry and was completely satisfied. And ever since, it has been costing me only about $7 by weight. That's health and money savings!

It's the same with plates. Use small plates at home, order them in restaurants or take them at buffets and you'll trick yourself into feeling fuller with less food. A full plate looks like a lot of food, no matter how small the plate. Plus, while our eyes may not be able to remember 20 years ago, our hardwired instincts do. It's not too hard to reprogram to smaller portions.

Take my friend from work. He has always loved going out to lunch and getting whatever he wants, be it healthy or not. A few years ago when he found himself a bit overweight he didn't stop his lunchtime habits. He simply started eating only half. He now shares his sandwich, quesadilla, burrito, salad, rice bowl, wrap, burger or whatever it happens to be with someone else. Anyone else. Or he saves the other half for another meal. Religiously. And guess what? He's 20 pounds lighter and has significantly lower cholesterol and body fat than he did 2 years ago. And he still eats WHATever he wants, every single day.

So do these mental tricks of slicing plates, containers or even the foods themselves in half sound ridiculous? Check out this article I read the other day comparing portion sizes now to portion sizes of the 1980's with some stunning pictures. Look at that tiny little French fry container! Don't you vaguely remember that little white paper container? That little container with twelve fries in it? None of these half gallon cartons that are served nowadays as a side of fries, just a few is all we needed back then. And go figure, THAT portion was only 210 calories – today’s is nearly 700, and I doubt that’s the maximum. This comparative article was more corroboration than inspiration for me to write this post, but I think it could inspire more than a few people out there to reevaluate what's making them fat, the burger itself – or the other burger hidden inside it?

Cheap Date

We're not big fast foodies. Maybe a quarterly stop at Chipotle, Noodles & Co or Quizno's and we're more than sated. I don't know if it's the taste, the nutrition or the low quality, but the traditional fast food joints are more like quarter-decadal stops for us.

Then there's a place like Subway. At least from the nutritional standpoint, it is “choose your own adventure” to the fullest. They have legitimately healthy (or “not unhealthy”) options there if you're willing to make it happen. Don't get me wrong, they have some major doozies there – a traditional meatball sub comes to mind as a prime example, but even any foot long sub seemingly has a pound of bread associated with its consumption.

Take the dinner Julia and I had when we went to Subway for dinner. We shared a foot long sub on one of their new wheat breads with 9 whole grains – not bad, at least they're trying to be healthy. It was a veggie sub of course, so Julia could actually share it, and who needs cheese if you know how to make the veggie sub taste great without it? It's not like the Subway cheese is anything special.

Start with lettuce and tomato piled high, then get a nice spray of red onions, black olives and banana peppers. Then a generous spread of hot mustard, a squirt of red wine vinegar, and a shake of black pepper and dried oregano. I asked for a small bit of their chipotle southwest sauce, one of their most flavor-rich sauces – yes, mayo based, but hey, we didn't get cheese and this was a worthy replacement for that lost fat. Fat you say? That little squirt was actually the only fat I managed to include on our entire sandwich, and I wasn't even trying. It's the saltiness and the tanginess of the sauces and veggies that make people enjoy their Subway sandwiches anyway, not the flavorless meats, cheeses or breads. So who needs them? Pick the healthiest bread you can find and just get the stuff that tastes good – oh and by the way, that's mostly fat-free stuff.

So we split our sub. When you look at a 6-inch sub out of context it looks like the largest sandwich you would ever think of making in your own house. So why eat two of them when at Subway? (Portion sizes in this country are out of control…for another day.)

Julia was quite impressed with my order and even deemed it artistic. That made me smile, but I don't know if I'd go quite that far. I did think it was highly tasty, even more so than past, less healthy Subway trips. We also split a little bag of kettle chips and a diet soda to complete our very satisfying meal. Half the calories, half the fat and hey, half the price. It came out to $3.19 each for dinner. So even if it's only once per quarter, at least when we find ourselves in Subway for dinner, we know we'll be able to take advantage of the fast food prices and service times without burdening ourselves with the all-too-common fast food nutritional pitfalls. A cheap, quick and healthy date for lovebirds. Just don't stray too far from my blueprint.

Diner Dud

After the wine wore off at a Valentine's Day event with Julia's work, we and the couple giving us a ride home were left a little hungry. So despite being 100 percent formal-clad, we stopped at a local favorite, if not institution, Bob & Edith's Diner, or B&E's familiarly. This was a place I had heard countless people mention as being a great spot for late-night eating, serving an extensive diner menu including breakfast 24 hours per day. Not to mention that it is so popular that during many parts of the day and night there is a line out the door to sit down in one of its 15 or 20 tables. Luckily, we got there just before the bars closed, so we were able to sit down right away, but it was definitely bustling for 1:30 AM. Who knew this many people were out and about and craving diner grub in South Arlington on a February evening?

As soon as I looked at the menu and saw the rows upon rows of classic sandwiches, burgers, egg plates and sides, my stomach perked up as it needed a little of this kind of food, well drunk food. After ordering the cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion and no mayo, and Julia ordered two sunny-side-up eggs, wheat toast and potatoes, and the others at our table ordered eggs and corn beef hash, I was relatively excited to taste this amazing diner food. Or drunk food. Whatever you want to call it.

The first problem is that what we ordered was not exactly what we got. The second problem is that what we got was not exactly good. My cheeseburger was actually skimpier than a fast food burger but it had less taste and seemed even less beef-like. Eek. Plus it came with huge glops of mayo on both buns after I specifically mentioned “no mayo” and the waiter confirmed it. The onions were 86, the tomato was mealy and the lettuce had to be sacrificed to wipe off all the mayonnaise. I will say the fries were pretty good, but a pretty skimpy portion for a diner.

The egg orderers at the table may have had it even worse. Both came with “corned beef hash” although Julia the vegetarian had not ordered it. So she had to fish her way around it, which couldn't have been pleasant. Besides, see how I said “corned beef hash” up there? Corned beef hash it was not – it was Spam hash. Not totally shocking that there would be Spam in a diner, but if it's Spam, please say Spam. The toast, rather than being buttered well or served dry with the butter on the side, was served cold with enormous globs of butter literally chilling on one end or the other. Each piece probably had enough for the entire plate. Then there were the eggs themselves. My favorite! Each one of the four eggs at our table had a big slobber of raw egg white chilling on top of each sunny-side-up egg yolk. Ugh. I guess they really meant something when they put the “eat raw or undercooked foods at your own risk” disclaimer asterisk next to each and every egg dish on the menu. Needless to say, raw egg white does not belong on any plate. I get told sometimes that my tastes are a little frou-frou. Well if I have to be labeled “frou-frou” to get a decent burger and cooked eggs, then color me whatever you want.

Needless to say, I wasn't a huge fan of B&E's. Hey, it was cheap, so that's always nice. Plus I enjoyed the company and conversation immensely and am happy that I can finally say I ate there.

My friend Cody said to me the next day that we might as well have gone to Taco Bell, the real American late-night, drunk, diner grub joint. The “frou-frou” in me wanted to defend the American diner over fast food, since I typically abhor fast food above all. But this time I would have taken the Taco Bell or the McDonald's gladly over B&E's. So touché to Cody. This time. Next time I'll know better, or drink more first.

My Seasick Crocodile

I'm one of the millions of Americans who no longer eat fast food. And the fast food industry doesn't really care about us. Why care when there are even more millions who think fast food is wonderful, convenient and if nothing else, unavoidable.

I think I discovered this recently when Julia was interviewing me as part of an assignment for her Consumer Behavior course. I had to talk about brands I “hate” and why. Inevitably, the conversation degenerated to fast food brands. The brands we all began internalizing even as toddlers when words like “happy meal,” “whopper” and “biggie” became parts of our early vocabularies. “Why should I care about fast food brands,” the twenty something me who hasn't eaten fast food in more than a year asked me. “They're all roughly the same -- unhealthy, unnatural and oh yeah, really unhealthy.” And instead of the reassurance I was expecting from myself, the eight year old me replied to Julia, “I like Wendy’s best, then McDonald’s second and I hate Burger King!”

Huh?! Are you meaning to tell me that after four years of fast food abstinence that I still have a taste for it, and even a preference? I disgust myself a little.

Well okay, I guess those images we glean as children stay with us, no matter what common sense prevails. And I suppose that means that I still like cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets and French fries, and given the hypothetical fat-free choice among the three of them, I'd take the least worst – the seasick crocodile. Which I guess in my case is Wendy’s. Why? Probably because my parents liked it the best growing up? And McDonald’s second. Why? Probably because my parents liked it least when I was growing up. (Hey, I had to rebel somehow!) And Burger King least. Why? I have no idea. Because one had to be the worst to me? Because of some bad birthday party experience with an super scary clown? Or a Burger King perhaps forgot to make my burger “plain” one too many times. Or maybe my unsophisticated tastes hated that “burned” taste of Burger King actually attempting to grill their burgers (whatever that means). Well who knows, but somehow Wendys’ and McDonalds’ mega advertising/branding campaigns (likely hoping to reel in youths for life) succeeded on me, but BK’s failed miserably.

And now all is left of my fast food consumption is a skeleton preference ranking with Burger King still squarely last. I guess their chances of winning my business when I was a little kid and actually “hated” them was actually better than now when the three are as close to indifferent as my childhood prejudices can possibly allow.

“Could Burger King do anything to gain your favor over the other two, at least in your hypothetical,” Julia asked inquisitively.

BK ever become by seasick crocodile? “Sure,” I responded facetiously. “Become healthy. Honest to goodness, top to bottom, 100% healthy without losing the taste and I'd be there every day. From whole grain buns to no trans fat ever to everything in between. Do what you need to do. I don't care, but make it healthy.”

If it's impossible, then none of them will ever get my business (or any of the other millions of fast food naysayers’) and Burger King will never get my hypothetical vote. It never won me over with taste, so if it can’t win me over with health then Burger King will never be my seasick crocodile.