Mar 04 2008
American Hamburgers - How Big Should They Be?
When I reached the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport I had been traveling for hours and was really hungry. I went into a restaurant, scanned the menu, and asked the server, “How big is the hamburger?”
“It’s the standard half-pound size,” he answered, making a large circle with his hands.
Hamburgers are getting bigger and bigger. Janet Raloff writes about portion sizes in her article, “Dietary Inflation,” published on the Science News Web site. Raloff cites a University of North Carolina study of eating habits and portions. In the 1970s a typical hamburger was 5.7 ounces. In the 1990s this size had grown to seven ounces. Now, many restaurants are serving half-pound burgers and a few are serving one-pounders.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Americans have succumbed to “portion distortion.”
The CDC details this distortion in its article, “Do Increased Portion Sizes Affect How Much We Eat?”
“While Americans have many choices in restaurants, the food (especially from fast food restaurants) is often very cheap and available in large quantities,” the article notes. It goes on to say that consumers may not know the difference between a serving and a portion. A portion is the amount of food the restaurant serves. A serving is a measured amount based on nutritional information.
Restaurant burgers come with a mountain of fries and other high calorie foods like French fried onions, bacon, and cheese. Eat everything on your plate and you may have consumed three meals at one sitting. As the CDC explains, if you continue to eat more food than your body burns you will gain weight.
Some restaurants have tried to cut portion sizes, only to receive complaints from customers. For the sake of your health and your children’s health, you need to think about the size of the burgers you are eating. You do not have to give up hamburgers. Mayo Clinic says you can fit fast food into a healthy diet by making wise food choices and watching your portions.
“Fast Food: 6 Ways to Healthier Meals,” an article on its Web site, tells consumers to “bypass hamburgers with two or three patties, which can pack on more than 1,000 calories and 70 grams of fat.”
Instead of ordering the biggest burger on the menu Mayo says you should order a regular or children’s burger, which is about 250-300 calories.
Ohio State University posts nutrition information about hamburgers on its Web site. The nutrition information for a hamburger describes it as “a juicy, 6-oz. steak burger served on a sesame seed bun.”
This burger has 620 calories, 38 grams of protein, 37 grams of fat, and 130 milligrams of cholesterol. But as Ohio State notes, the nutrition analysis does not include condiments. Condiments are high in sugar and salt so go easy on them.
Despite Web site postings, nutrition labels, and a rise in obesity, Americans are still eating huge hamburgers. Maybe it is time to return to the quarter-pounder. Eat a 93% or 97% lean burger on whole wheat bread and top it with crisp lettuce and juicy sliced tomatoes. You will get the flavor of the great Americn hamburger and better health in every bite.
Copyright 2007 by Harriet Hodgson
Harriet Hodgson has been a freelance nonfiction writer for 28 years. She is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Her 24th book
Tags: hamburgers, portions, servings
Related Posts
No responses yet