The Clean Plate Ranger

Americans are fat. We all know that we are bordering on obesity. We've heard the statistics over and over again. On average, Americans are 23 lbs over their ideal body weight. The fact is that American's are becoming more accepting of a larger sized self. The older I get, the harder it becomes to loose "that 10 nagging pounds", and I've finally discovered why.

Because my parents drilled into my head, at a very young and impressionable age, to eat everything on my plate.

I don't blame them, really, because their parents drilled the same thing into them. In fact, if we are looking to place the blame, we can blame World Wars 1 and 2. As a result of World War 1, our government created the "Clean Plate Club" because of the limited amount of food in the country. The Clean Plate Club, first established in 1917, was a movement that began after Congress passed the Food and Fuel Control Act . The act enabled President Woodrow Wilson the power to regulate the distribution of food, which was becoming scarce. Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover as the head of this task and his job was to make sure that the precious food Americans had didn't go to waste.

Hoover targeted small, school aged children, with the Clean Plate Club pledge:

 “At table I’ll not leave a scrap of food upon my plate. And I’ll not eat between meals, but for supper time I’ll wait.”

And so it began a generation of Americans who were taught never to waste food. That generation were our parents parents, who then raised our parents to believe in the same pledge. Then along came the Great Depression and World War 2 and once again food in America was scarce. The Clean Plate Club was re-established in schools across the country and another generation reinforced the importance of never wasting food. They taught their children and so on and you see where I'm going with this?

Flash forward into the future, and here we are Super Sizing everything and eating whatever and whenever we want to, yet we still fell the need to never let it go to waste. Old habits die hard, and Americans continue to overindulge and take home "doggie bags" so that not a scrap goes to waste. I noticed that when a large plate of food is put before me I immediately feel a pang of guilt, like I need to finish it and if I don't I've committed a crime of some sort.

And we wonder why we are 23 lbs. over our ideal body weight? Go figure.

Plating Pretty

This week it's all about food...

So I'm watching Sunday Morning on CBS on Sunday and it was all about food. Food is love, where I come from, and the Sunday morning program served to solidify that fact. There was an interesting piece about a new staple in American restaurants called "plating".

Remember when your food was presented to you in a way that served the important food groups? A protein, a starch, a vegatable and so forth. All compartmentalized, like the paper plates with the sections spaced out, your food was placed on the plate side by side. Today, with the popularity of cooking shows and reality cooking competitions, that has changed. "Plating" the food has become the norm and even some chain restaurants are getting into the phenomenon. Plating, or food styling, is a way to present the food in the most artistic and appetizing way possible, like wrapping a present, the presentation is just as important. We are learning from the pros, by following food shows and competitions, and designing our plates to be things of beauty.

Food bloggers take pics of the foods presented to them on their blogs and social media sites are all abuzz with the pretty and pleasing presentations of food on a plate. The garnish, tying the plate together to make it a work of art.And they may be on to something.

Take a simple turkey dinner; instead of loading the food on in different sections, the food is sometimes presented from the inside of the plate out. All of your mom's favorites, piled expertly and beautifully with the gravy drizzled over it like the garland on a Christmas tree, the gourmet way is now the trend in our food obsessed culture. 

So on Thursday, don't lop a bunch of your favorites on the plate with no rhyme or reason, instead think of your plate as your own personal masterpiece. You may have more than a few people at the table who will ask you for a bite from your own "plating" Picasso.