Study Finds Recipes Yielding Larger Portions
A current study from Annals of Internal Medicine says that cookbooks have been increasing portion sizes over the past 70 years. The study "found a nearly 40% increase in calories per serving for nearly every recipe reviewed, about an extra 77 calories," says Wall Street Journal.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
1 Comment:
First of all, I never find that cookie recipes make the stated count when the numbers are that high. Isn't it possible that they're simply more accurate? Perhaps they found that most bakers didn't dissect their pan of brownies into 30 pieces, and thought that using a measure more like the real habits of their readers would be useful.
Another thought: when Joy Of Cooking was first published in 1936, it was aimed at homemaking women without jobs who undoubtedly had a lot more time to cook for their families than the audience for the current editions. Could the smaller portions have been given with the assumption that more dishes total would be served at the meal - rolls, side dishes, a soup, a salad? The 228-calorie portion of chicken gumbo would only be an adequate dinner in the event of multiple other dishes served with it; the 576-calorie 2006 portion comes closer to a full meal serving without multiple accompaniments, making it a more useful guide for working cooks with less time.
On the other hand - does anyone really read cookbook portions? If I want to eat 1 cup of pasta salad and the recipe says the portion size is 1/2 cup, is that going to hold me back? The idea of blaming cookbook portion sizes for the national obesity epidemic seems preposterous.
producestories at 11:37PM on 02/18/09