Clean Plates?

When growing up, did you hear, "You better clean your plate ... Remember the starving people in ..."? And then the sitting with a timer. Or, "You'll just have to have it for the next meal."

We had some teens here for supper and were talking about this. Lots of fun comments, and Lizzie said something that we made her write on a post-it-note. So here it is -

"When you force kids to eat, even 1 or 2 extra bites, you deprive them of the skill of letting them recognize that their body is telling them that they are full." -Lizzie Farland

Her comment is profound because it opens up possibilities that some long-held child training methods may be fundamentally flawed and may even contribute to America's obesity pandemic. And like an old book on health in our home library says, longevity could correlate with eating small meals.

Clean plates got me thinking about the times I used to cook for the student center at the University of Arizona. I remember both Monte and another guy, used to lick their plates clean in front of me to show how much they loved the meal! I guess this has little to do with over eating by being forced to clean your plate as a child. It just makes the point that cooks love to be appreciated.