Portions, Smortions

Thanksgiving is less than a week away, and our thoughts have turned to eating.  Let me clarify - Americans think about eating alot of the time: What are we having for dinner?  What do I need from the grocery?  Where are we going to eat?  But for the next few days we'll be thinkjing about what we're going to have for dinner on Thursday.  The Big Dinner will mark the beginning of the six-week holiday pig-out. 

I read an article in our rag, the Courier Journal, that said that the FDA and USDA are urging Americans to try and reduce portion sizes.  To quote the USDA, "It's not about eliminating the dressing and gravy from your holiday meal - just trimming the trimmings to a healthy portion size."  They asked us to train our eyes (and stomach) to recognize appropriate portion sizes by using everyday objects as guidelines:

      deck of cards = meat (3 oz.)
      computer mouse = potato
      tennis ball = stuffing, pasta, rice (1/2 cup)
      baseball = vegetables (1/2 cup)
      golfball = cranberry sauce, jelly, dressings (2 Tbs.)
      dice, 2-3 = butter, hard cheese

They also recommend that when we go out to eat at a restaurant, order a to-go box when we order our meal so we can pare our portions down to size before we start eating.

Let's put this into practice using my dinner last night at TGIFridays as an example.  If one portion of meat should equal the size of a deck of cards, then by my calculations I had the equivalent of enough decks of cards for an entire season of "Celebrity Poker."  I also had shrimp with my steak.  If I'd pulled the tails off, and smashed them down, they might have been the size of a deck of Uno cards.  I'm sure glad I didn't order a potato or pasta - at least that's one portion I don't have to stress over. And if I'd read the article earlier and known about asking for a to-go box before I started eating, I would have enough leftover steak for lunch every day next week.

When you think about it, downsizing isn't such a bad thing after all.