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Men's Portions

You know, we all see life from our own perspectives. Like most people who watch TV and observe the media, I noticed that there is a lot of attention paid to issues that women have with dieting and healthful eating. And I think that's a really good thing! But men have issues, as well.

One thing is men's portions. Our culture and the society in which it exists, associates men with larger portions. Words like king-size, for example. There are any number of cuts of prime rib. The largest size and the one that's most often ordered by men is the standard cut or sometimes double thick cut. Smaller cuts are named after female icons, such as the queen cut or princess cut. Men are associated with larger portions, even with frozen dinners. I don't know if it's still available, but one of the manufacturers of frozen dinners produced a line called Hungry Man. Not hungry woman, but Hungry Man. The serving sizes of each of the items was larger. Now I don't know if the reason is that men have traditionally and anthropologically been associated with hunters and hunting, but men's sizes in food portions is larger than those sizes associated with women.

Furthermore, women are culturally and Societally associated with smaller portions or shared portions. It's not all that unusual to see two women go to lunch and share a sandwich or share an entree. You would be hard put to see two men go to lunch and share a sandwich or share an entree, even though it would be more healthful. In fact, men are associated with cleaning up their plate and even going beyond that, to other dinner plates on the table.

Who knows? This may go back to the days when most men had physically demanding jobs or manual labor. Typically a man back in the 1920s would leave home, break his back all day swinging a sledgehammer or pickaxe, and needed to come home to a hefty large meal. But let's wake up! Times aren't the same. Here we are in 2020, and most men make their money in an office environment or using technology. They consequently burn only a small, perhaps tiny, fraction of the number of calories they burned back in 1920. Yet, unlike women who have learned to tailor their eating habits to the times, men are still eating the way we used to eat in the 1920s. Large chunks of meat, huge portions of potato, perhaps even bread on the side.

The picture is this particular blog entry shows a 6 oz steak from Outback Steakhouse. Eaten mindfully, that is slowly and carefully, that oz steak is very, very satisfying and filling. Perhaps that 6-oz steak should be the new paradigm for men's portions.
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