Eyes bigger than our stomach…

I don’t think my mum ever got over her children leaving home. It took an age for her to stop cooking for five instead of two; force of habit, I suppose, as I suspect it would have been hard readjusting her memory of measurement and quantities. Even now, living on her own in a retirement village – quite happily I might add – she still tends to overcook, but that comes in handy for an older lady who doesn’t want to prepare a meal for herself every evening. She’s happy enough to eat the leftovers the next day or freeze them for another. (On this point, I definitely think one of the upsides of getting old is that you can cook and eat what you want, when you want.

My mum makes creamed rice and fruit or pancakes or omelettes with jam for her dinner. All the food she loves best she can eat whenever she wants because there’s no pressure to serve up a balanced diet to a family or partner. Or, if you’re still in your forties, for your weight and your health! But if you can’t indulge when you’re over 70, when can you? Bliss.)

But back to the issue at hand. Portion control is something we often grapple with at home. Why do we always cook too much? I can honestly say we have never – ever – not cooked enough. Obviously our eyes are far greedier than our stomachs. That, or we simply need some educating on how much to cook. Needless to say this is a subject that’s closely tied with food waste – and with our country’s burgeoning waistline.

The Australian Better Health Initiative’s recommended daily serve of lean meat is 65-100g of cooked meat or chicken. That’s half a cup of mince, two small chops or two slices of roast meat. Well, I’ll wager that many, many of us are serving up and eating just a tad more than that. I know we cooked two T-bones the other night that, according to these quantities, could have fed a family of six. And, yes, I ate mine. Sigh. But that’s the problem if you’re hungry. If it’s there you eat it. If you can’t eat it all you’re likely to bin it (I’ve never been a fan of day-old steak).

A quick way to work out how much we should  be cooking is to pull out some of Nanna’s dinner plates and compare them to what we eat from these days. If you put the food from the modern plate onto the old-fashioned plate I bet you’d be shocked at how much there is. With all our super-sized cups and plates and bowls it’s easy to overeat and overcook because we’ve lost judgement on how much is enough. And don’t get me started on super-sized wine glasses. I reckon they have a lot to answer for.

For some precise guidelines on recommended serving sizes, visit www.measureup.gov.au.