Coming from Europe & Asia, the amount of crap fed in America is just crazy: like “is that for ONE person?” (more like an entire table of 4) since what is considered “normal” is just beyond what my stomach can handle, whenever I see their portion sizes: it makes me puke. (No wonder why they have a higher rate of obesity…)
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Because you work so long that when you get the chance to eat you have to get it all in at once.
But, y’know…freedom or something
No wonder why they have a higher rate of obesity
To be fair, this isn’t just about portion sizes, it’s about what’s in those portions. We have a ton of heavily processed, wildly unhealthy food options, and they’re all the budget friendly ones. Getting things like fresh fruits and vegetables is much more expensive than it should be, so we have this weird situation where it’s possible for someone to be both food insecure and also overweight, just because the food they do get is so unhealthy and fattening.
to add to this is the same good old fashion capitalist based enshitification that makes best-buy dates so wasteful.
in short: they feel that they can out do the competition if they give larger portions than the others.
Statistically speaking, yes. American portion sizes are larger than European and Asian countries but I dunno…
I’ve been served a whole table of food in Italy and ate for four hours chit-chatting with locals. Korean’s put so much food on the table there’s no room for drinks. In Vietnam I’ve been served a fried fish the size of my thigh in the best curry sauce ever. Order Schnitzel from Germany or Austria and you’re getting a pice of fried meat the size of your chest on top of a mound of potato’s and lemons. Loads of places in China serve family style, even if you’re traveling alone.
Every country has its big plates but that doesn’t mean you can’t find reasonably sized plates. A McCheeseburger is the same size round the world. You also don’t have to eat your whole plate in one sitting. Get comfy with leftovers and you can save a few bucks on your next meal.
Also, don’t believe what you see on TV. Those dudes say some WILD shit and most of them are riding the influencers train to try and dig up customers. The bigger the spectacle, the more views on the tickytocky.
Yeah, I definitely dont think any country has a monopoly on big meals.
I think it also might be that the cost of ingredients likely makes up a smaller proportion of the cost of a meal in an American restaurant than a restaurant in many other countries. You then end up with restaurants trying to distinguish themselves by giving you a bigger portion size than the competition. You then end up with a situation where there’s an expectation in America that if you order a single item off the menu of a restaurant, you should never leave hungry, no matter what. This means that most people end up with more than they need, so you either take it home, share with someone, or overeat.
I will say that’s all only true for certain types of restaurants. A lot of “nice” restaurants have moved away from the “each person gets a big course and a drink, and maybe you split an appetizer” -style. There’s a lot more family-style than there used to be. There’s a lot more restaurants where a waiter will say something like “for a table of 2, I’d order 4-5 items if you feel normal, 6-7 if you feel really hungry”, and they actually make recommendations on portion size based on what you order. Even fancy places seem to be really encouraging people to share.
From the 50s to the 90s, the US was in a massive wealth and growth cycle, and people demanded value for their money because the consumers had the power.
That value was provided by large portion sizes for low cost, which normalized the idea of eating a large amount of food for every meal.
Now we’re just sick and obese and used to it even though the nutritional quality of the food has dramatically plummeted.
Increasingly, portion sizes are starting to come down a bit. The one-two punch of shrinkflation causing the restaurants to serve less, and the spread of GLP-1 drugs starting to help people eat less, are slowly whittling away the issue over time.
Food is relatively cheap in the USA compared to other countries. You also had a lot of immigrant waves come to the USA, find that food was so cheap, and celebrated by creating larger meals.
Uh no, sorry, it is MUCH cheaper in Europe for food. Groceries, Restaurants, food kiosks, everything over there was cheaper than here. Made with more real food too. We’re getting scammed here.
Yeah food is cheaper in many places in Europe. Better food too.
Food being cheap != cheap food being the norm
No, but it is more a sign of what a restaurant or store will focus on. If the raw ingredients are of lower costs than rent and labor, it may make more sense to provide more food.
For restaurant culture in the USA, there is generally a focus on large portions, free tap water, few courses, and turning tables over quickly. A lot of early fast food chains were effectively food factories, skimping out in rent and reducing labor costs because those are the major costs.
It’s so they can grow up strong to lift all those guns. You know… for when their government treads on them.
There is, I think, a few things that contribute here.
- The US has a very stupid “bigger is better” mentality. So if you go out you expect a large portion because that translates to better (and more value). This is of course not true, but culturally it’s very embedded.
- almost everyone I know takes home some portion of their meal from a restaurant. So that single portion is really two, or maybe three.
- IME people don’t usually have giant portions at home, they sometimes do of course, but things tend to be more sane for home cooked meals for your family. They also tend to be a lot more balanced, with more veg and grain.
- what you see on TV is often sensationalized, and not fully indicative of normal here.
We’re a huge country I guess. I’ve experienced pretty much the exact opposite as you.
- almost everyone I know takes home some portion of their meal from a restaurant. So that single portion is really two, or maybe three.
Most people around me have the waiter take their half-eaten plate away. Apparently, food waste is considered polite or something around me. If you actually try to finish your plate, you get made fun of. (I’ve been made fun of.) I guess it makes you look poor or desperate or starving or something?
- IME people don’t usually have giant portions at home, they sometimes do of course, but things tend to be more sane for home cooked meals for your family. They also tend to be a lot more balanced, with more veg and grain.
The dinner plates my family and my wife’s family (and extended family) have for dinner are quite large and they usually get filled up. Usually meat is the biggest portion of that plate, followed by carbs, and then veggies are the smallest (if present at all). My wife’s family in particular always, always, always, has ice cream or cake or cookies after dinner.
My wife and I use smaller dinner plates, and again, surprise, get made fun of because we’re eating such “tiny” (normal) portions.
The anount of people I see wasting food from these giant plates is equal to the number that are obese and finish the whole plate. Both of those are higher by an order of magnitude vs the people who share a plate or bring leftovers home. Before we had kids, my wife and I could usually share a meal and still have leftovers.
A restaurant would rather sell you a $14 half pound burger than a $7 quarter pound burger. The only fry option is a plateful for $6. Or you can upgrade to a side salad for $3 more.
I don’t think there’s a single objective answer.
The gist would be that it’s habitual due to long term cultural patterns, the same as what any given culture has in regards to food.
At some point, the concept of big piles of food being the default crept in. I suspect that it originated between feast/celebration foods and the “working man’s meal” where early workers in agriculture and industry needed a shit ton of calories to keep doing their work. Once enough people see that kind of portions often enough, the mind decides that must be what everyone is supposed to get on their plate.
Then, as things like machinery and eventually robots removed more and more of the physical labor from jobs, sizes never went back down because the outcome of eating beyond what you need isn’t immediate and obvious. So you follow the defaults, do what you have seen and internalized as the norm.
But there are still plenty of jobs where loads of calories are necessary to get through a shift. So people still see that, and thus expect it on their plate even if it isn’t a healthy amount for the job they have.
TV just follows society most of the time, so a show will most often mirror a norm without any effort to correct for what’s best for individuals.
When it comes to restaurants, there’s an extra later though. Even if people know they don’t need that much, there’s an expectation that if you pay for a given order, you’ll get the same amount as anyone else that orders it. So restaurants have to scale to what at least a decent sized segment of the population expects to see. They won’t be happy if they get less return on their plate compared to another diner, despite that other diner being on a road crew busting their ass laying pavement in the sun all day and needing more.
If a restaurant either changed sizes per customer needs, or charged an extra amount for people with higher needs, they’d go out of business fast
the average person doesn’t eat much if any vegetables, leafy greens, or fruit, which fill up your stomach much more than meat or bread.
Username checks out at least.
