Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

news.vanderbilt.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 127 posts

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#51

Post by mikestew »

PunchTornado wrote: post #23
sixstringtheory wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous idea to downvote. I almost never finish restaurant meals, I’ll take the second half for lunch the next day or give it to someone on the walk home. But suggesting portion control would be advocating more personal responsibility, so maybe that explains peoples’ “disagreement.” So much easier to toss in the trash, right?

I always feel bad when asking to pack the leftovers at the restaurant. is it rude or a sign of being poor? I'm unsure.

If it weren’t expected, restaurants wouldn’t keep stacks of to-go boxes lying around. As for a sign of being poor, who gives a shit? I’m obviously wealthy enough to eat at your restaurant. And if you’d like me to share some of that wealth again, you’ll box thus shit up without comment.

But enough anonymous internet tough guy talk, I’ve been taking home food for decades and no one has ever uttered a word. Olive Garden to $200/person, it’ll get boxed with a smile. Hell, waitstaff often come around and ask if you want a box (which I sometimes take to mean, “I’d like to turn this table, Slowpoke.” ).

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#53

Post by dorfsmay »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

At the risk of sounding preachy, I was raised with the “clean plate” philosophy and avoided overeating by planning beforehand what I could reasonably eat, and never putting anything more on my plate. Once you get rid of the incentive at the very end to eat just a bit more, I don’t see this as being a huge problem anymore.

And I believe this is were the clean plate mentality came from, only take what you need, the rest can be saved for a later meal.

Having said that, as a kid and teenager I always felt that I could it a bigger portion so always took "too much", and finishing it once I was no longer hungry was never an issue. In that sense, clean plate mentality was a problem.

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#54

Post by jdminhbg »

johnisgood wrote: post #50
pkaye wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what they are really meaning is "There are starving kids out in the world. Be grateful you have all this food available and don't waste it."

Hmm, yes, I agree with that, but then again: if the kid's parents were to cook less, then the kid would not have had to eat it "forcefully". The only reason I assume force here is because the kid would not need any reasons to be told if s/he is hungry. It seems to me that this is a special scenario, but being grateful for the things you have is not, and should not be a special case, IMO. I am not sure that this is ho…

It's not so much about "I cooked a lot of food, eat all of it" as it is about "you ate the French fries but haven't touched the broccoli," usually. In other words, it's a cliche dragged out when a kid is being picky about something.

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#55

Post by matte_black »

sethammons wrote: post #2

Mom: "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!". Thanks Mom; kids are still starving there, and now America is fat. --unkown comedian. I was told, as a kid, that it was rude to not eat all the food put in front of you, especially at other people's houses. Other parents would comment on how polite we children were for clearing our plates.

It’s funny because I think in China or some other Asian countries it’s considered rude to actual clean off your whole plate, you should always leave a little bit. Otherwise what you’re basically saying is “What the fuck!? You’re so fucking poor you can’t afford to give me more than enough food?”

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

sethammons wrote: post #2

Mom: "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!". Thanks Mom; kids are still starving there, and now America is fat. --unkown comedian. I was told, as a kid, that it was rude to not eat all the food put in front of you, especially at other people's houses. Other parents would comment on how polite we children were for clearing our plates.

[deleted]

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#57

Post by jacquesm »

Simple rule: if you put food on your own plate you should eat it all, if someone else puts food on your plate you are allowed to leave as much or as little of it as you want. That way you will hopefully learn to take only as much food as you will want to eat.

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#58

Post by air7 »

I've come to believe that singular scientific papers should be consider "only slightly above noise". Like ants leaving weak pheromones when they find food: It works well in scale but close to random in the particular case. I feel this is even more true nowadays, when the marginal utility of improved rigorousness is so low.

This article reads to me like a PR piece for the (marketing) professor more than an honest showcasing of scientific findings: The results are very relatable and feel intuitively true so as a reader it's easy to pick it up as "ammunition" for future family dinner discussions and thus are also good for the media to publish. So there's no need for rigorous science. (I mean come on, "participants were asked to imagine eating a certain number of cookies (...) and then asked how much they wanted one more cookie.")

Re: The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?

#60

Post by Fricken »

If I go out for dinner and get served a big meal, I'm going to stuff myself silly and if I eat breakfast at all the next morning it'll be a banana or something. It really isn't hard to balance out your calorie intake across meals. I have a hard time believing that the insidious 'clean plate' mentality is the real culprit behind why so many people are fat.
Post reply on HN