Hello readers!
I like to do my research about helth, well-being and fitness.
One interesting subject is “portion sizes”.
The first time I went to the States (1981 – I was 14 years old) and fell in love with pretty much everything I saw there.
My father has American relatives and one of his cousins (John) and his wife (Maribel) offered to take Christianne (my cousin) and I on a trip across the country. It was amazing! We traveled from Florida to New York driving through Alabama, Tenesse, Arkansas, Mississipi, Missouri and Illinois (most of my relatives were living in Chicago at the time). Also, John and Maribel took us to Disneyworld and it was awesome!
Another thing I remember is that, besides having so much fun, I put on 5 kilos during the time I spent in USA (a bit more than a month). We didnt have Mac Donald´s and another delicacies like Pringles in Brazil at the time. Plus all the different breakfast cereals and french toasts, muffins and brownies…. Wow! Everything was new and delicious.
The second time I went to the States was in 1996 (I cant believe I went to Europe much more times than to the USA), with my parents and my brother. We went to New York for a week. Again, it was AMAZING!! I loved it soooo much!
And I remember that, no matter how hungry I was, I always needed to share my portions with my mother because the servings sizes were huge!!! A small cup of orange juice was enough for both me and my mother. A bagle filled with cream cheese was too big……
I think that this probably explain why the Americans are getting so fat, much more than what type of food they are consuming.
I mean, its important to eat healthy things but the portion sizes will determine weight gain.
If you need your daily chocolate bar, sure you can have it. Just eat a little of it as an afetrnoon snack, for instance. Or a little slice of cheesecake. This is why the French are thin… I suppose. If you are in Europe and order a meal at a restaurant, its usually pretty small (because they expect you to have an entrée, main dish and dessert…).
Here, in Brazil, we have something that is really insteresting. We have the restaurants that sell food by the weight of the amount of food you put in your plate. We call them “the Kilogram Restaurants”. They have a huge buffet with a large variety of salads, meats (fish and chicken included), pasta, vegetables, legumes and of course the fried greasy junk stuff. You choose what you want to put in your plate and the waiter weigh your plate. Its good because you determine how much food you will buy and what sort of food you will eat.
In our restaurants “a la carte”, when you choose a meal (usually a main dish that comes with a side dish), they will serve you lots of food, but them it comes in separate dishes and not on a plate, so what most people do is to share a dish with another person or even 2 other persons.
I know its all cultural stuff.
I subscribed to a website called Hungry Girl and I recieve their daily newsletter and I can see how much diet stuff is avaliable in the USA. For instance the chocolate puddings with less than 100 calories per cup. Even with sooo many delicous low cal stuff, the Americans are getting fatter and fatter as time passes…. Go figure…..
