The Clear-a-Plate

I take your point janerowena. But it is usually the fitter healthier and possibly a bit younger people who go on cruises.
And on holiday, I think most people let rip a bit, even the older ones.

Not me, I lose my appetite in heat and can never really understand how others can put away so much.

When I first started writing recipes in the 1970s, the standard used for portions of meat was 4 oz (120 g) off the bone and 6 oz (175 g) on the bone per serving. For fish, we allowed 6–7 oz (175–200 g) per serving. Nowadays, the 12-oz (350-g) steak seems to be the norm in many places and burgers come in stacks, interleaved with cheese and strips of bacon. However, I don't think portion sizes of vegetables have increased in the same proportions.

Except chips, probably...

I stick to those portions too, absent! We learnt it at school. I am a 'two starters' person. I don't eat chips either, although I do cook them for DBH&Son about twice a year.

um, does the B stand for Bxxxxxx or something else?
[am slightly holding my breath here in case I am putting my foot in it]

I have downsized all my meat portions because I only buy organic meat. We eat a lot of casseroles and stews and I add lots of extra vegetables. I did a venison casserole this lunch time. I had enough for three meals for the two of us. Sometimes, I have enough for four meals for two. This means, for us, an average meat portion is 2 - 3oz. My average rice or pasta portion is 2 oz, sometimes less. A fish portion is 4 - 5 oz.

When out we only have two courses, often only one. I do not have a sweet tooth so desserts have no attractions.

I have lost weight by simply reducing portion size, not feeing obliged to finish the food put on my plate and only eating when I am hungry and stopping as soon as I feel 'replete'!. That way no food is 'forbidden'..if I want chocolate or a piece of toast with butter I eat it. Still a way to go but better than a diet!
Bad eating habits started a boarding school..photos prior to that show that I was skinny..also at that time we lived in East Africa where fruit was plentiful but other sugary things were not! Photos after a year at boarding school shows a plump 10 year old! We had cereal,cooked food and toast at breakfast, a cooked lunch (plenty of spuds and sponge /suet puddings and custard) then tea time was more bread and cake!

Back in the 90's I worked in the restaurant of a new Asda. As a special offer we were selling a half chicken and chips for £1.99 and we must have sold hundreds of them. The majority of plates that came back still had most of the chicken untouched - people were just ordering it because it was cheap. Nobody seemed to care that an actual living creature had been killed for them to have a couple of forkfulls before it was thrown away. Just sheer greed!

Ana According to government health guidelines, potatoes are not vegetables; they are carbohydrates. I suspect that they did this renaming to prevent people from classing chips as one of their "five a day" – a figure, incidentally, that seems to have been pulled from thin air.

I did think about adding 'potatoes are vegetables' to my post, but decided against it!

Agree about the 'thin air' figure-plucking - rather like the number of units of alcohol we're 'allowed' to drink per week, which a government minister actually admitted had been decided that way.

I thought that potatoes had been classed as carbohydrates long before the idea of five a day came in.
Certainly diabetics think so.

Are they not still vegetables, though?

I think diabetics are usually allowed one small roast potato with its skin still on or something. I remember reading that brits on the whole eat so little fresh veg, fruit and salad that they get the majority of their vitamin C from potatoes.

soontobe Today the B does indeed stand for B******. How did you guess?

Normally it stands for Beloved. However the impending school inspection has turned him into the Husband from Hell and I have to keep being where he is not for fear of stabbing him in painful parts.

No plate has been completely cleared this weekend, that's for sure.

They're starchy vegetables, Ana

www.food.gov.uk/scotland/scotnut/eatwellplate

According to the Eatwell Plate people should base their meals on starchy foods.

No wonder there's an obesity crisis.