Did you know that eating off a 9 inch blue plate can help you eat properly? The idea is that your portion size (ideally 50% vegetables, 25% protein and 25% starch) will be correct–no piling over the top–on a 9 inch plate instead of one of those ginormous white ones I own 12 of in my cupboard. Okay, then. Why blue? Companies study the effect of colors on appetite stimulation (think of all the fast food establishments in red, yellow and whites) and blue has been shown to make you feel fuller faster. (If you’re interested in this topic, The End of Overeating by the ex-Surgeon General David Kessler will knock your socks off…and might make you a little angry.) Dr. Wayne Anderson discusses this concept at length in Dr. A’s Habits of Health which is a must read for those clients striving for optimal health.
I have added a touch of my own to this theory: designer chopsticks. Not those cheapy wooden ones, but some upgraded washable ones that you can use to taste each leaf of lettuce. That idea was inspired by a poet who did a live reading about her master gardener partner who grew many different types of organic greens and would invite her out to the garden before dinner to select the leafy greens she would eat that night, and he asked her if she would enjoy using chopsticks to savor the flavor of each leaf. What a concept. I thought they all had to dog pile onto my fork. So being a gardener myself, I high-tailed it out to our garden and chose leafy greens to eat with chopsticks. I’ve been sold ever since. (It slows me down a bit so I don’t look like I just got out of the military and had to rush through each meal.) Try it. You just might like it.