When More ISN'T Better

The husband and I were recently on a vacation to a warmer climate and enjoyed it very much. One thing I really enjoyed was having someone else prepare, serve and clean-up our meals. But I noticed something when we ate at restaurants and it really started to bug me. Invariably, no matter what we ordered, we ended up with enough food to feed at least 2 more people. What a waste! We'd try our best to eat as much as we could but ended up feeling bloated and uncomfortable and, sadly, a lot of those terrific meal "left-overs" ended up being tossed away.

It seems to be a North American habit to expect our "money's worth" when it comes to meals (and many other things). So when we order a meal at a restaurant and our plate comes brimming over with food we feel like we got a deal. But is it really money well spent when, in many cases, it gets thrown in the trash? We've tried the "doggy bag" idea several times and though it eases our conscience at the time, the results are the same when we toss it out of our fridge a few days later.

What I find so disturbing about it all is that there are so many people going hungry - and I don't mean in third-world countries either! There are families in our own communities who don't have enough to eat and here are restaurants, throwing out perfectly good food because they overfilled our plates. We seem to have forgotten that "we eat to live" and, instead, we are a society that "lives to eat". Does anyone else see the connection here between that and the fact that obesity is becoming the number 1 health problem we face today?

What I'd like to see is all restaurants serve meals on smaller plates and lower their prices a couple of dollars per meal. Maybe they'd actually save money and, hey here's an idea, they could donate some of those savings to the local food bank! Sure, some customers may grumble a bit at first but after they found out that they're actually full after that smaller meal and they aren't throwing half the meal away they'd quit grumbling. We don't need to eat as much as we do. We don't even realize we're full until we feel uncomfortable and that's not healthy.

I challenge all of us to make a difference when we eat at restaurants & order from the appetizer menu. I do that most of the time now because I'm always pleasantly full (not stuffed) and I'm not wasting food. It's healthier for me and I feel better knowing I'm not throwing a perfectly good meal in the trash when there are so many going hungry.