Portion sizes when you were young

Datchet

Food in the 70s; Findus crispy pancakes fried in Lard, permanent chip pan on the hob, full fat milk & 3 sugars in tea! We were all skinny as rakes because we played out dawn till dusk.
I echo what people say above- our family was a two wage one car & mortgage- we were not well off; tax rebates and no holidays abroad. I remember blackouts, redundancy and black market sugar!
Portions were much smaller and biscuits & sweets were treats on a Sunday. Grandpa & Nana gave us sweets and rhubarb / broad beans in equal measure.
Take-aways? Forget it- way too expensive.

Sharon87

I grew up in the 90s. We had decent sized portions, but not large portions. I remember going round a friend's house once and they served lasagne, chips AND garlic bread! It was a massive portion of lasagne as well!

When I was a kid I remember given 50p a week for sweets. So I could have a mixture of 1p sweets, 5p lollies, 10p chew bars or spend 30p on a Mars Bar. I rarely went for the chocolate bars!

My dad never like pasta or rice so we never had it until I became a teenager, so potatoes were a staple of my diet. We either had boiled/mashed potatoes with either chops, sausages, chicken, veg and gravy or things like sausage chips and beans. We had a roast dinner nearly every Sunday - I rarely have one these days! Takeaways were maybe once every month or two and it was either a chippy or a chinese (with chips not rice )

My portions have steadily gotten larger since I was at uni, but in the last year I have decreased my portions - most of the time. I had a chinese last night and ordered WAY too much - it's lasted over 2 meals already and I still have some left!

I'm overweight and I think the main struggle has been variety. I like a lot more stuff than I used to and more things are available, so I always go 'I haven't had this high calorie snack in a while, I'll have it', but there are so many high calories snacks there's always something I've not had in a while!

LameWolf

dandy-candy wrote: »

There's a a cup cake chain in my local shopping centre which sells "individual" cup cakes with the icing on top as high as the height of the sponge again. It must be a packet of butters worth of buttercream, looks absolutely disgusting - I would feel sick eating that much fat!

Oh lawks! Those things make me feel sick just to look at them! _pale_

[Deleted User]

I think SHARON87s post has hit the nail on the head, these days we've all got used to having 'it all' and by that I mean ALL the extras that come with any cuisine because that's what is the perceived correct thing to do. If we had curry back in the 60s we had curry and rice, nowadays we have poppadoms as a starter, maybe samosas and onion bahjees or kebab as a second course, then the main and all the breads like rotis, chappatis or naans with chutneys etc, and then a pudding and also a drink with the meal. We've got used to having every option available even when we cook at home. It's no wonder our waistlines are expanding at a great rate of knots is it?

suki1964

As some of you know I cook in a bar/restaraunt for my sins and at tea time the most popular dish on the special menu is the mini grill

Pork chop - 6 oz
Chicken fillet- up to a pound weight
Sausage
Bacon
Fried egg

Add to that peas. Mushrooms and tomatoes plus a side

The most popular is cheese and bacon mash

Opps forgot to say is comes with a boat of pepper sauce ( made with cream ) and onion rings

And as part of either. 2 or 3 course meal deal it's often started with wedges smothered with cheese and bacon or slabs of cheesey garlic bread and followed with chocolate fudge cake with both cream and fresh cream


A full grill is all of the above plus a steak

dandy-candy

OMG Suki! That sounds like a weeks worth of food on one sitting!

HappyMJ

dandy-candy wrote: »

OMG Suki! That sounds like a weeks worth of food on one sitting!

It is...well the meat portions could last a week there's not enough vegetables...It's also a very cheap dish to order and share between 2 adults and 2 children. I'd get a side order of vegetables to balance it out a bit. Just ask for another plate or two. Most restaurants don't mind. I've seen people try and eat the whole lot though. It would knock me out. If I eat too much these days I fall asleep and that's quite bad if I were driving home from the restaurant at the time I fall asleep.

suki1964

dandy-candy wrote: »

OMG Suki! That sounds like a weeks worth of food on one sitting!

Tell me about it, but I never get more then a bit of gristle back from the plates

HappyMJ wrote: »

It is...well the meat portions could last a week there's not enough vegetables...It's also a very cheap dish to order and share between 2 adults and 2 children. I'd get a side order of vegetables to balance it out a bit. Just ask for another plate or two. Most restaurants don't mind. I've seen people try and eat the whole lot though. It would knock me out. If I eat too much these days I fall asleep and that's quite bad if I were driving home from the restaurant at the time I fall asleep.

Yes its a great meal to order to share - but they dont - its eaten by one person

As for veg - I will have a whole plate sent back to me because i dared to put a garnish on it, let alone veg

If veg is to be ordered, its deep fried

FairyPrincessk

Interesting about restaurant portions. I've never been one to order large meals but I was recently reminded of how much I hate being told off by restaurant staff for not finishing an enormous portion. We mostly eat out when we're 'away' somewhere and I can't take the rest with me. It starts with a 'didn't you enjoy your xxx?' and when I say, 'yes, it was lovely it was just too much for me' I get tuts and remarks of disapproval. The portions are usually around 3-4 times what I'd dish up for myself. I often wish restaurants would go with a 'small portion' option on their menus--knock a bit off the price, serve a half the normal portion and people who have small appetites or who are trying to exercise more portion control or don't like waste or excess then aren't face with either stuffing themselves to the point of feeling ill or wasting lots of food.

If I didn't finish my meal over stuffed and ashamed of not clearing my plate I'd be more inclined to have a coffee or perhaps a pudding.

Pollycat

suki1964 wrote: »

Pork chop - 6 oz
Chicken fillet- up to a pound weight
Sausage
Bacon
Fried egg

Add to that peas. Mushrooms and tomatoes plus a side

The most popular is cheese and bacon mash

Opps forgot to say is comes with a boat of pepper sauce ( made with cream ) and onion rings

And as part of either. 2 or 3 course meal deal it's often started with wedges smothered with cheese and bacon or slabs of cheesey garlic bread and followed with chocolate fudge cake with both cream and fresh cream

A full grill is all of the above plus a steak

WOW! :eek:
Any idea of how many calories the above has?

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Interesting about restaurant portions. I've never been one to order large meals but I was recently reminded of how much I hate being told off by restaurant staff for not finishing an enormous portion. We mostly eat out when we're 'away' somewhere and I can't take the rest with me. It starts with a 'didn't you enjoy your xxx?' and when I say, 'yes, it was lovely it was just too much for me' I get tuts and remarks of disapproval. The portions are usually around 3-4 times what I'd dish up for myself. I often wish restaurants would go with a 'small portion' option on their menus--knock a bit off the price, serve a half the normal portion and people who have small appetites or who are trying to exercise more portion control or don't like waste or excess then aren't face with either stuffing themselves to the point of feeling ill or wasting lots of food.

If I didn't finish my meal over stuffed and ashamed of not clearing my plate I'd be more inclined to have a coffee or perhaps a pudding.

Portions in most Greek tavernas are huge!

I ordered lamb & potatoes and it was a small leg of lamb!
In my experience they don't seem to mind if you don't eat it all.
In fact, I think if you did finish all of your meal they'd feel that they'd not served enough.
They are more than happy to wrap up any left-overs for you to take away.
I fed a very happy cat on lamb, chicken, liver, beefburgers & pork for a couple of weeks.

I do think that if the portion is huge, you can be over-faced with it & your appetite vanishes before you've even picked up your knife & fork.
OH is like that, I know exactly how much to put on the plate - especially Christmas lunch - and he'll sometimes have a little bit more.