Plates or bowls for everyday eating?

Soup bowls with a rim, pasta bowls for pasta and casseroles, and flat plates for everything else. We sit at the kitchen table where it is nice and warm. Very David Cameron come round for a "Kitchen Supper".

We still like to eat at the table so it's a plate for, meat and two veg, fish and chips, salads, beans on toast, etc.. How would you eat things like that out of a bowl? We have started to eat pasta and rice dishes out of large flat bowls. We started to use the crockery the DS brought back from university, but now have some plain white ones to match our other crockery.

I prefer a plate, but I suspect that eating from a bowl is safer if you eat at your settee as opposed to the table, so less likely to spill its contents. Eating at a table seems to have gone by the board except for formal gatherings. I'm clumsy as well as old-fashioned.

I have a 1930s shallow dish with wide flat rim that I use for all my meals except soup which goes in a small deeper dish. I have used the dish for years. I do have Christmas dinner on a plate though...

I do like a deep plate.
Some are almost flat!

We have plates, bowls and pasta bowls. We usually sit at the table to eat. I have started using pasta bowls for almost everything; pasta (obviously) but also curries and stews as well. So much easier 😁

A bowl every time. Usually a large one to take a meal.

We always sit at the table and eat our dinner from plates, but I have to say that after reading this thread, I'm now actually contemplating buying a couple of the large bowl types, especially as we often have pasta dishes. I also love ramen style dishes, but you can't eat them from a plate.

Been using pasta bowls for ages. They look fuller sooner, nothing spills so safer to eat on the sofa, bed etc. Food is warmer for longer. A bowl is comforting too.

I didn’t know it had become a thing!

I almost always sit at the table, even if I'm here alone, just because it's more comfortable.

My sofa looks comfy, but my feet don't reach the floor, then it only has one arm, which means twisting about like a contortionist.

Plates if needed. Bigger flat rimmed bowls usually suit us all better and always have. No idea this was a 'new thing'. We've always had small, medium, and large plates, porridge bowls, soup/curry flat bowls.

We have some of the flattish pasta bowls. We use them for casseroles or things like risotto as well. But mostly we use plates.

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Today has been a bowl-y day.

A small soup plate for breakfast and a pasta bowl for lunch

We serve our main meal on a plate and eat it at the table. Cereal, soup, pasta and fruit and are eaten from bowls in our home.

We probably use flat bowls about half the time and plates the rest. A roast dinner or other meal that requires a solid base for cutting up food - is better on a plate, whilst dishes such as cottage pie with peas, rice based meals or pasta are better in a wide based bowl. We are lucky that our everyday square dinner plates fit in our dishwasher easily - I have heard some large round plates are too tall to fit in some dishwashers, so dinner bowls having a smaller diameter fit more easily.

Sadly many people sit on the sofa to eat with a bowl resting on their belly.
Gross but true.

Why does something that other people do in their own homes sadden you? I can think of far worse things to get upset about

I quite agree with Pippa. these eating habits go with diets high in ultra-processed foods (UPF'S), lacking in fruit and veg, and generally poor for the health, which puts added burdens on the NHS. By eating in a slumped position the food is going to go down the throat etc more slowly and contribute to acid indigestion.

Eating on the settee, also means eyes and mind concentrated on a screen, instead of concentrating on everything the pleasures of eating can contribute to your life.

Because I cannot now sit up to the table and have to eat my meals on a tray sitting in my riser recliner chair I have my meals in wide bottom.bowls. (Bought in a Japanese store in LA many years ago) My oats or cereal in a soup bowl. Can no longer cook a roast unfortunately.

Some people may not have much room in their homes for a conventional table and chairs, so they might not have much option other than to eat from their sofas. As Doodledog says, it doesn't have any effect on anyone else.

Welbeck no I said I squirrel and bird watch while standing eating snacks in the kitchen.

We have switched to these bowls and I much prefer them. They are ideal for messier foods too as sauce etc is nicely contained and this works well for messy adult eaters as well as the kids! I do own a posh dinner service but that is unlikely ever to see the light of day again I suspect

And we do eat at a table and healthily’

grandtanteJE65

Usually, we sit a the table to eat and use a flat plate and a knife and fork for everything except (obviously) soup or rice pudding.

I can see that if you prefer to eat sitting in an armchair and only using a fork or spoon a bowl might be easier, and of course if eating with chopsticks a flat plate would be rather useless, wouldn't it?

My imagination boggles at the thought of eating Christmas dinner out of a bowl, though!

Eating from a pasta bowl, using a fork and spoon has nothing whatsoever to do with sitting on the sofa.
Some food dishes are more traditionally eaten this way. I certainly don't like to eat curry or pasta dishes from a plate and using a knife and fork. I also regularly enjoy a mixed salad, also eaten from a pasta dish and using a fork and spoon. Everything item of salad food and the protein is in small pieces, no need for a knife and fork.

Exactly, Aldom. We chop and change depending on the food, which is just as likely to be healthy whether it is a curry in a bowl or a roast dinner on a plate. We are probably always going to eat a roast dinner from the table - largely because we like to help ourselves to the food from serving bowls, and thinking about it we do eat from the table about 75% of the time, whatever we eat - we just don't make a virtue of it, and if it suits us to eat on the sofa we do just that.

These judgements are ridiculous, IMO . It is not intrinsically 'better' to sit at a table than to eat pizza in front of the TV. Being saddened or disgusted by how other people live in their own homes is a foreign concept to me. It wouldn't occur to me to cast aspersions on other people's dining habits.