The big spoon theory

It's pretty simple: the bigger the spoon (fork, spork...utensil) you eat with, the more you will eat. I have no idea if it's true but it dawned on me this morning that it might be. Here's how the lightning bolt hit me: I'm a teaspoon girl, tried and true. I don't use the bigger of the two spoons (the tablespoon, I'm assuming) ever unless I'm serving something. However, Mr.Mr. is the exact opposite. He's a big spoon guy and if provided a little spoon, he'll actually get up from the table and get himself a new [bigger] one. If I think really hard, I'm not sure I can come up with a time when my childhood dinner table was ever set with larger spoons. Whereas Mr.Mr. has told me many times about his afterschool ritual of pouring cereal into a mixing bowl and going to town. And understandably- you would need a big spoon for that job. ...I'm taking too long to get to the point.

So- there were no small spoons for me this morning. Every last one of them was in the dishwasher and I was hungry for my morning bowl of FMV Flakes (also known as "poverty flakes" around chez Salty since they're only $0.99 a box). So I figured, hey, no big deal- I'll just use a big spoon. Wrong. The first bite I tried to take nearly required an additional hand stretching my mouth open in order to accommodate the massive scoop of cereal. And my sisters will tell you, it's not for lack of a big mouth. You see, I was loading the spoon up the way I would with a small spoon. Only in a big spoon, that meant about twice the amount of food going into the old piehole. And I got to thinking. If the theory about smaller plates equalling smaller meals is true, the same should hold water for the size of your utensil. A small fork can only balance so much pasta/salad/chicken/whatever and you'd never dip your giant spoon into a bowl of soup and only fill it a third of the way. And because we all eat so fast, we're done with our food (care of our aforementioned giant utensils) before we can blink and of course we're still hungry. Am I right? Come to think of it, I imagine if you paid attention, you'd notice restaurant utensils are usually on the large side as well.

So as part of my general efforts to eat well and within reason, not only try to remember to breath in between each bite, drink more water, and finish chewing and put down my utensil before going back to the plate for more... I will I continue to use my small spoons. Now if only I could get someone to test this theory. I'm certain there's a press release from the FDA just waiting to be published on this one.