“The small Coke now is what used to be a large 15 years ago,’’ laments psychologist Janet Schwartz, a marketing professor at Tulane University who led the Chinese food study. “We should ask people what portion size they want,’’ instead of large being the default.
Restaurants are paying close attention, says prominent food-science researcher Brian Wansink of Cornell University. His own tests found children were satisfied with about half the fries in their Happy Meal long before McDonald’s cut back the size, and the calories, last year.
“We’ll be seeing some very creative ways of down-sizing in the next couple of years,’’ predicts Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.
But let’s call it “right-sizing,’’ says Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely. Right-size suggests it’s a good portion, not a cut, he says.
Couldn’t you just get a doggie bag? Sure, if you’ve got the willpower to stop before your plate is mostly clean. Lots of research shows Americans don’t. We tend to rely on visual cues about how much food is left, shoveling it in before the stomach-to-brain signal of “hey wait, I’m getting full’’ can arrive.
So Schwartz and Ariely tested a different approach: Could we limit our own temptation if we focus not on the tastiest reason we visited a restaurant — the entree — but on the side dishes? After all, restaurants can pile on calorie-dense starches like rice or pasta or fries because they’re very inexpensive, filling the plate so it looks like a good deal, Schwartz says.
A popular Chinese franchise at Duke University, with a mix of students, staff and visitors to the campus hospital, allowed the researchers in at lunchtime.
In the serving line, customers pick the rice or noodles first. The standard serving is a whopping 10 ounces, about 400 calories even before ordering the entree, says Schwartz. There was no half-size option on the menu board.
