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Originally Posted by teaser
Maybe there's another way to look at the Big Plate thing. We were encouraged to eat lower calorie density foods. So we went out and got bigger plates.
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We only bought bigger plates, because plates got bigger, but that's probably why they became so much bigger - eating low fat, low calorie foods meant it took a lot more food to feel any fullness. We were advised to cut calories by avoiding eating a second helping, but with such low cal food, that just left you hungry. The solution is bigger plates, because you can have a larger first serving, and not need that second serving to feel satisfied. (at least you could hold out for a couple of hours, but thank goodness, by then it was snack time - time to eat some kind of fat free snack, which would leave you hungry again a couple of hours later, when it was time to eat another low fat meal)
At any rate, unless someone happened to inherit a set of older plates, or you happen to be older and still using your older set of plates, younger people setting up a home of their own only bought bigger plates because that's what was available. If someone decided to replace an older set of plates because they'd broken too many of the old set to have enough plates to go around, there was nothing readily available other than larger plates.
So we have larger plates, larger flatware... and have you noticed that drinking glasses are now larger too? I remember the juice glasses from when I was a kid in the 50's - they were no more than a little over 4 oz, made to accommodate 4 oz of juice, because that's about the most juice you could squeeze from one orange. Now, the juice glasses available are a minimum of 6 or 7 oz, usually upwards of 8 oz. With just a quick perusal of the selection of juice glasses available at BB&B, some sets which are considered to be juice glasses are 13+ oz, able to easily hold the juice from 3 oranges. Not that most people squeeze their own oranges these days - with gallon jugs of "fresh" juice available, why bother with squeezing your own? So even the perception that you're drinking an inordinate amount of juice is gone.
Other glasses are larger too. It used to be that a standard drinking glass (for water, milk, or soda) was 8 oz - now they're at least 13 oz (in order to accommodate the 12 oz can of soda), usually 16 oz, or larger. (I just checked some of the glasses in my cabinet - the one set which I've had for approximately 15 years holds 16 oz, but another somewhat newer set that I thought was the same size, actually holds 20 oz.)
I have some wine glasses from 20+ years ago, which hold approximately 8 oz - a standard 5 oz serving of wine fills almost 2/3 of the glass. It's rare to find wine glasses that small these days. I have a somewhat newer set which holds 10 oz, also quite rare to see these days. Mostly what is available now holds at least 13 oz but many hold 18 oz or more. I saw one set of wine glasses on BB&B that holds 24 oz, which is nearly a full bottle of wine.
If you're careful about the size of the drink you pour (whether wine, juice, or milk), and only pour the standard size serving, those huge glasses look ridiculous, as if you're skimping on how much you're serving, so naturally, as the size of the glasses have increased over the years, so has the amount served. It's not a big deal if you only drink water - but fill those huge glasses with wine, milk, or sugary soda, and someone eating a SAD diet will be drinking far more carbs than they might even begin to suspect.
. (the one his wife changed linked in first post).
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