An easy way to reduce your energy intake/calorie consumption is to reduce the size of your plate.

Over the past 20 years, the average Australian plate size has grown from 23 cm in diameter to a whopping 28 cm. While a lot of the increasing plate size can be attributed to creating visually appealing dishes which only occupy a small part of the plate surface area and are more aesthetically pleasing.

While the principal of having elegantly presented meals in a restaurant is very appealing, it has led to the gradual increase in the size of the plate. Now when you go out to a restaurant the large plates can be up to 31 cm, which in turn leads to a greater surface area for the food to be distributed on.

Most fine dining restaurants will still have a massive area of white being visualable when presenting their dishes but the humble pub meal has been supersized. When you get your typical pub meal served on a larger plate, I have found that any white plate surface is filled with chips and salad.

Back to the consumer, this has led to the purchasing of these lovely plain white plates as used in the hospitality industry, however unlike the restaurants, we tend to feel entire available space with food.

Like many children, me included, we were taught to eat everything on our plate which is great as a little kid unfortunately this behavior transfers over into adult hood. So when we go out and buy these 28 to 31 cm plates, will tend to fill the entire surface area with the contents of whatever we’re cooking. In turn will lead the entire contents of the plate being filled which leads to the increase in consumption.

It’s interesting the change of oiur eating habits over the centuries. Harking back to the Roman period, people in the banquet situation would choose from dishes and place a small portion on their serving plate.

Even in the Victorian Area, the plates size was a more modest size, maybe guestamating at under 23cm when comparing the saucer size of the APC Flinders range compared to the Victorian era..

As you can see from the images the plate size was quite small when compared to the current Godzilla size of plates.

One Australian Company, AFC-Flinders has an assortment of plates. Their standard dinner plates from 16.5 cm through 31.2 cm.

While the range of plates are primarily catering to the hospitality market, the larger plate ranges are available to the general public.

An easy way to reducing calorie intake is to reduce your plate size, maybe try 23 cm which is more than adequate to provide the necessary food for healthy adult.

Recession buster tip #10 Cook at home and save money $$$

It seems simple enough but cooking at home contrary to popular belief is definitely cheaper if you avoid supermarkets for your meat, fruit and vegetables.

With the success of Masterchef, people are not only cooking at home but is entering the vernacular of daily conversations.
Even a friend of mine emailed me a recipe that he had tried and raved about it, Gary’s Fried Rice & Open Beef Kofta it’s great to see that finally are seeing the benefits and enjoyment that can be had by cooking at home, it’s simple enough to learn and you can save money

Masterchef – getting people cooking & having dinner parties.

It’s awesome the to see the positve effect that Masterchef is having on getting people cooking at home and entertaining friends.

The great thing is cooking at home can save you money as well.

With so many cooking shows, books and DVD’s on cooking, the kitchen has become more of a show piece than being functional, that is a kitchen.

One thing I found interesting was a few of the guys who attend our Melbourne fitness boot camp talking about how they had some mates over for a Masterchef dinner to coincide with the finals.
How awesome is that, cooking is traditionally not a blokey activity, so to see the guys cooking instead of ordering takeaway with their mates is awesome.

So start cooking at home and invite friends and family around for a dinner party.

The findings of a recent survey confirm that in households where there is a male/female relationship, the female still cooks the majority of the time.
What does this mean, well if the wife/female doesn’t want to cook and the male partner can’t be bothered or is too scared in fear of being told off then the easiest option is ordering take out/take away food.

So give your partner some encouragement and limit the criticism to get some extra help in the kitchen.

Compare the size of our rubbish bins to out parents & grand parents. Now we have a huge dedicated bin for recycling and another for general waste.
Why do we need so much more space for rubbish, well buying more stuff, especially packaged food will quickly put your garbage bin under pressure.
Sixty years ago we made everything, all our meals were cook at home or we prepared our lunches for work/office.
A modern supermarket may stock 20 000 to 30 000 different items.

Prior to the fifties, Supermarkets didn’t exist, we went to a number of speciality shops for our food supplies: the Grocer for packaged, dry or canned foods, Green Grocer for fruit & vegetables, Baker, Butcher, Milk Bar/confectionery shop.

Yet we managed fine making our own cookies and other treats, jams and break fast cereal was porridge, toast, fruit or the good old bacon & eggs (Ok if you;re doing manual labour), lunch was sandwiches, fruit and dinner made from scratch.
We had our milk home delivered with a trip to the local Milk Bar satisfying our basic requirements of flour, sugar, bread etc.

Somewhere along the way our basic range of products exploded, have a look at the pasta source aisle, how many products are there?
Making a great pasta source is pretty simple, why pay for a processed product with preservatives, chemicals & artificial flavors when there are simplier alternatives?

The main point is all these products have packaging and can be made at home but “I don’t have the time”.
Well maybe ask yourself what you are doing with the other 8 hours you are not working or sleeping.
Yes modern life is crazy yet we can make some decisions about how we manage all our activities.