Portions in Restaurants 50 yrs. ago.

[brin]

With the current Obesity epidemic in mind......does anyone else remember the small portions served in restaurants years ago..There was no such menu item as a double or triple hamburger or cheeseburger. A serving of mashed potatoes was equal to an ice cream scoop full, same for vegetables, steaks were generally 6 oz at the most. There were no buffet or all you can eat restaurants..there were cafeterias but they were small portion as well.

I just thought about that the other day...and back then there were no computers and very little on what TV there was and most folks got plenty of exercise...Just sayin ' :licking:

 

[300UGUY]

With the current Obesity epidemic in mind......does anyone else remember the small portions served in restaurants years ago..There was no such menu item as a double or triple hamburger or cheeseburger. A serving of mashed potatoes was equal to an ice cream scoop full, same for vegetables, steaks were generally 6 oz at the most. There were no buffet or all you can eat restaurants..there were cafeterias but they were small portion as well.

I just thought about that the other day...and back then there were no computers and very little on what TV there was and most folks got plenty of exercise...Just sayin ' :licking:

My elderly neighbor loves the all you can eat places. I've gone with him a couple of times, and just cannot believe the size of some of the folks there. Some people can barely walk, they are so big, but they go eat more & more. Pretty pathetic.

 

[johnrex62]

With the current Obesity epidemic in mind......does anyone else remember the small portions served in restaurants years ago..There was no such menu item as a double or triple hamburger or cheeseburger. A serving of mashed potatoes was equal to an ice cream scoop full, same for vegetables, steaks were generally 6 oz at the most. There were no buffet or all you can eat restaurants..there were cafeterias but they were small portion as well.

I just thought about that the other day...and back then there were no computers and very little on what TV there was and most folks got plenty of exercise...Just sayin ' :licking:

We obviously ate in different restaurants. I recall a 14oz steak as being a standard size on many menus and 18 and 20 oz for T-bones and Porterhouses weren't hard to find. I never saw an ice cream scoop outside of the Baskin Robbins and usually saw my mashed potatoes served up by an enameled serving spoon and normally two spoons per plate as I recall. The other veggies were often just a single spoonful unless you smiled and asked nicely. :licking:

There were plenty of buffets and several all-you-can-eat chains around town, but they were very busy and my folks did not like standing in line to eat so we only went to those on "special" occassions when the better sit down restaurants were too full and the buffet folks were celebrating elsewhere.

True, we were much more active in those days, but there wasn't any shortage of rotundness then either if my memory serves.

 

[dmccarty]

I remember getting McD's hamburgers and fries when I was a kid. They were a hamburger, not a Big Mac or even a Quarter Pounder. I am not sure they even had different sized fries. At best they had small and regular or some such.

The thing is food is cheap compared to other expenses. Giving someone a super sized order of fries does not cost that much compared to the price charged so McD's makes more money and the customer gets more food.

People do simply eat too much. Years ago we were planning a vacation at Disney World and I was reading a website about WDW. There was a discussion about fat adults and children at WDW. One lady stated that the parents of the fat kids should be arrested for child abuse which I thought was extreme.

I have noticed there are more fat kids in school today than when I was a kid so I understood a bit why the lady made the statement but still, I thought it was extreme.

Then we made the trip. There were way to many fat adults and children. I do not mean they need to loose a few pounds fat. I mean morbidly obese fat. There was a family from the UK on one of the buses on day. The kid was fat. I noticed his swollen ankles and I caught my self wondering if the kid already had Congestive Heart Diseases.

I saw a morbidly obese man on a scooter. This guy was HUGE. He had just driven around the lake at EPCOT which I think is two miles. His morbidly obese daughter was huffing and puffing walking behind him on the scooter. She was in distress, out of breath and red faced. She was 13-14, had to be at least 250 pounds and was in no shape to be walking a couple of miles. Behind him, I saw his two sons, about 8-10 and already close to 200 pounds each, sharing a ride on a scooter which is a no no. They were zipping around people like they were pylons. The mother was just as huge and brought up the rear in a third scooter. Not sure why the poor daughter had to walk.

That family of five easily totaled 1,000 pounds. Some people have health problems which leads to added weight. I get that. But this family and others simply eat too much.

After I saw the family of five, I thought the lady who stated the parents of fat kids should be charged with child abuse may have been right.... Course that opens a Pandora's Box to which I have no good answer.

Later,
Dan

 

[brin]

I worked part time as a grill cook at a restaurant when I was 16 yrs. old..that was 50 yrs. ago ..and it was called Toddle House...that was one of the only restaurant chains back then..portions were small..but that was normal back then. a hamburger patty was 2 oz. and an order of hash brown potatoes was 4 oz....A tenderloin steak wrapped in bacon was 4 oz. and came with 4 oz. of hash browns, a toasted and buttered hamburger bun, several lettuce leaves and two thin slices of tomato.. Just look at the difference today in portions.

 

[Zxyrthe]

Please, please, let's go back to 1960's portions. I'm all for it.

 

[PossumHound]

This post isn't going to comment on portions at the diners, but on the food we used to get at home when I was growing up. A typical breakfast had 2 or 3 eggs, 2 biscuits, homemade butter and jams, sausage or country ham, hashbrowns or grits. Some of friends even served that butter mashed up with molasses and poured over fatback! Lunch, or dinner as we called it, would be more fried meat 3 or 4 veggies, cornbread and some kind of pie or cobbler. Supper was usually smaller, but similar to lunch- again with some yummy dessert.

All that and only some old folks got fat because we were out busting butt planting and harvesting the crops, maintaining the outbuildings, tending the animals, or working on the equipment. After that, off to swim, play some kind of ball (if there was no official league or school team we just gathered and picked up sides and got to it), or whatever other kind of physical activity we could have some fun at. Maybe a couple of hours of TV each night if we were lucky, but school work usually limited that when not summer.

The point is, it's about activity. You can consume 5000 cal per day, but if you don't burn it off you get what the OP described.

PH

 

[Zxyrthe]

I enjoy eating but I'm burned out on the celebration of gluttony. I'm also tired of eating as entertainment. I understand the importance of presentation and palatability but there's no sense in turning diet into dogma.

 

[JDgreen227]

Very original and thought provoking thread, but to be honest I do not really recall dining out much until I got married 20 years ago. Know what is kinda funny, last few times we were dining out at a local mid price steak house or Italian place I remember thinking "they raised the prices AGAIN and shrank the portions too"....:laughing:

We almost never dine on fast food, wife might pick up a pair of regular burgers and a portion of fries on her way home but never more than that.

Would be VERY interesting to have a comparison of the nutritional content of a typical restaurant meal 50 years ago compared to the present. (Costs, too !!)

 

[Transit]

I have just learned about a very interesting exebit in Boston Mass. The exebit is about what people eat all over the world.

Some amazing facts show up.

Other peoples want to eat like us, the American diet, fast junk food.

One US trucker eats 4,500 calories per day and the hardest thing he dose is turn the power steering wheel and walk at the truck stop to get more junk food.

The closer on eats to the earth the better, sorgarm, buckwheat, whole grains.