Large Portions

According to an article in yesterday's New York Times, the recipes in the contemporary edition of the Joy of Cooking average nearly 50% more calories than the recipes from the first edition, which came out 73 years ago. The increase is due to the fact that the newer recipes call for ingredients with more calories, and also because the portion sizes created by the recipes are larger.

That's not terribly surprising, in light of the fact that our technologies for agriculture and food production have grown much more efficient during the intervening years, producing considerably more food than any of us need to stay alive.

Brian Wansink, one of the authors of the paper that reported these findings, attributed the trend in part to the fact that we're now able to afford more higher calorie ingredients, like meat and fat. Wansink is the guy who studies the effects of visual cues on our consumption habits, like the fact that we tend to eat more chips when we're munching out of a big bag.

I like to overeat sometimes, mostly on special occasions when there's great food around. Part of me enjoys that mildly uncomfortable feeling of having eaten more than was truly necessary, as long as it's not an everyday thing and it doesn't reach the point of severe discomfort. I think about the fact that humans have been overeating in celebration since the beginning of time. It's hard to keep that in perspective now that we have the resources to overeat on a daily basis.