The smaller the fork, the more you'll eat, a study says.
Over the course of two lunches and dinners at an Italian restaurant,
researchers assigned diners to either "large fork" or "small fork"
tables: The forks were either 20% larger or smaller than the standard
fork.
The researchers weighed the plates before they went out to diners and
when they came back. After controlling for factors such as lunch versus
dinner, whether alcohol was consumed, and initial plate weight, people
with small forks left less on their plates (4.4 ounces) than people with
big forks (7.9 ounces). And the larger the portion size, the greater
the gap.
The researchers theorize that since physiological satiation lags
behind consumption, diners look for cues regarding consumption. Diners
with small forks think they're making little progress with each bite, so
they start shoveling it in. Hunger apparently plays a role: The
researchers didn't find the same effect when they studied random college
students who hadn't planned a meal.
"The Influence of Bite Size on Quantity of Food
Consumed: A Field Study," Arul Mishra, Himanshu Mishra and Tamara M.
Masters, Journal of Consumer Research (forthcoming)
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