Food Unwrapped: THIS is why eating supermarket ready meals could make you gain WEIGHT [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Food Unwrapped: THIS is why eating supermarket ready meals could make you gain WEIGHT [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped investigated how the size of supermarket ready meals has changed over the last 50 years – and the results might surprise you.

Presenter Jimmy Doherty wanted to know how much portion sizes have grown since the 1960s.

“Big portions used to raise a few eyebrows,” he said. “Now portions seem to be getting bigger.”

To hunt out the food packaging of yesteryear, Jimmy headed to a museum displaying memorabilia from the 20th century celebrating British brands.

He took a range of ready meal food packages to compare to their modern day equivalents.

Jimmy then asked a team of people to go out and buy the same products from a variety of supermarkets to see how portion sizes had altered.

A cottage pie from 1999 weighed 230g, whereas a modern day one was a whopping 450g – an increase in size of 73 per cent in just 17 years.

A chicken curry had grown too, increasing from 300g to 400g over the last 15 years.

The same was true of the other ready meals – all had grown on average by 20 per cent or more.

The average weight and size of adults in the UK has increased significantly since the 1960s.

At the end of the 1950s, the average man weighed 10.2 stone (65kg) and the average woman 8.7 stone (55kg). Today the average weights are 13.2 stone (83.6kg) and 11.1 stone (70.2kg) respectively.

However, Food Unwrapped found that ready meal size might not be the only contributing factor.

Plate size could also be to blame. The average plate width in the 1960s was eight inches. In 2017, plates have grown by a third to 12 inches.

Professor Theresa Marteau, director of the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “Evidence tells us that plate size does make a difference.

“If we could get rid of those increased portion sizes and bigger tableware, we could reduce average calorie intake in adults by 279 calories a day.”

And professor Marteau isn’t the only one who thinks so. Apparently, at least 10 studies have shown larger plates make you eat more.

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http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/diets/775810/food-unwrapped-ready-meals Food Unwrapped: THIS is why eating supermarket ready meals could make you gain WEIGHT

[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Food Unwrapped: THIS is why eating supermarket ready meals could make you gain WEIGHT