Coming from Europe & Asia, the amount of crap fed in America is just crazy: like “is that for ONE person?” (more like an entire table of 4) since what is considered “normal” is just beyond what my stomach can handle, whenever I see their portion sizes: it makes me puke. (No wonder why they have a higher rate of obesity…)
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From the 50s to the 90s, the US was in a massive wealth and growth cycle, and people demanded value for their money because the consumers had the power.
That value was provided by large portion sizes for low cost, which normalized the idea of eating a large amount of food for every meal.
Now we’re just sick and obese and used to it even though the nutritional quality of the food has dramatically plummeted.
Because you work so long that when you get the chance to eat you have to get it all in at once.
But, y’know…freedom or something
There is, I think, a few things that contribute here.
- The US has a very stupid “bigger is better” mentality. So if you go out you expect a large portion because that translates to better (and more value). This is of course not true, but culturally it’s very embedded.
- almost everyone I know takes home some portion of their meal from a restaurant. So that single portion is really two, or maybe three.
- IME people don’t usually have giant portions at home, they sometimes do of course, but things tend to be more sane for home cooked meals for your family. They also tend to be a lot more balanced, with more veg and grain.
- what you see on TV is often sensationalized, and not fully indicative of normal here.
The anount of people I see wasting food from these giant plates is equal to the number that are obese and finish the whole plate. Both of those are higher by an order of magnitude vs the people who share a plate or bring leftovers home. Before we had kids, my wife and I could usually share a meal and still have leftovers.
A restaurant would rather sell you a $14 half pound burger than a $7 quarter pound burger. The only fry option is a plateful for $6. Or you can upgrade to a side salad for $3 more.
Increasingly, portion sizes are starting to come down a bit. The one-two punch of shrinkflation causing the restaurants to serve less, and the spread of GLP-1 drugs starting to help people eat less, are slowly whittling away the issue over time.
