Doggie-bag it: This trick can help you eat less when dining out

Last week, on April 1, the Italian restaurant chain Olive Garden announced that it will be increasing the portions of some of it’s classic dishes with the launch of “Giant Italian Classics.” The chain will be beefing up its chicken Parmesan, spaghetti and meatballs, and a few other favorite dishes. The portions are now large enough to feed a family of four. One meatball will be 12 ounces (and more than 2 days’ worth of meat!) and the chicken Parmesan will be a foot long.

I wish I could say April Fools, but this is no joke.

Jennifer Arguello, Olive Garden’s executive vice president of marketing, said in a press release. “And we regularly hear how much our guests love our timeless dishes like Chicken Parmigiana and our classic meatballs. So, in the spirit of Italian generosity, we’re serving up them up BIGGER than ever before with the introduction of Giant Italian Classics.”

As I write in my book Finally Full, Finally Slim, portions have become supersized in recent years, a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.

So, what can you do?

Doggie bag it!  This trick may help you manage your portions when you eat out.

A recent study from researchers at Penn State found that subjects in a “to-go” group–who were told before their meal that they could pack up leftovers in a doggie bag–ate less than a control group who were not told about the doggie bags.

The subjects in both groups came to a lab for dinner weekly for four weeks. Each week the portion size that they were served was increased. As the portion sizes was increased, the subjects in both groups ate more. However, the subjects in the control group ate a lot more than those in the” to-go” group and told about the doggie bag.

As the serving size increased, the control group’s calorie intake increased from 600 calories for the standard typical portion to 680, 780, and 760 for the three larger portion sizes. The “to-go” group’s calories rose far more slowly: from 600 to 610, 670, and, 690 for the larger portions.

Restaurant portions are generally too big. Next time you go out to eat, ask for a doggie bag! Or, share a meal with your dinner companion. Don’t forget to check out my book for lots of useful portion control tips and tricks for navigating oversized portions. Bon Appetit !