Quantity Over Quality

Portion sizes, like American waistlines, have been slowly but relentlessly inching outward. Despite all the happy talk about healthy and balanced eating that you hear, many Americans seem to prefer quantity over quality when they go out to a restaurant.

And according to an article in today's New York Times, "Will Diners Still Swallow This?", the profit models of many restaurant chains are built around the notion of providing diners with massive amounts of cheap calories. Apparently, the bigger the portion sizes they provide, the more they charge and the greater profits they make.

The article contains a wonderful graphic which shows that a typical chain restaurant main dinner course of pasta contains almost the entire daily allowance of calories for an adult.

The article also talks about how one chain, TGI Friday's, is taking what the restaurant industry considers to be a bold and risky step - reducing portion sizes and charging less for them.

Just another of the crazy consequences that result from applying mass production models to food production and consumption.