When Did We Become Giants?

If we left our house for the day, and Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) crawled up a hypothetical vine and found a bowl of porridge on our kitchen table, would he think he was in the home of a giant?

Absolutely, because of the size of the bowl.

I made myself a can of soup today, and all my favorite, human-sized bowls were in the dishwasher, so I had to use a bowl from a set I’d gotten as a present that I don’t like to use because they are TOO BIG!

This so-called “soup” bowl could masquerade as a serving dish at a Thanksgiving dinner and no one would be the wiser. Usually I get two human-sized bowls of soup out of a can, which is satisfying because I like seconds, and if I divvy it up just right, even thirds. But I poured all the soup in this bowl and it didn’t even fill it – I think I could have gotten another whole can of soup in there, plus croutons, and a fly doing the backstroke (an old waitress joke – Customer: What’s this fly doing in my soup? Waitress: The backstroke).

I got stuffed on the one bowl of soup, and I didn’t even get seconds, which made me cranky. Food is so psychological – they don’t call it comfort food for nothin.’ You think if you’re having seconds you’re getting full, and you walk away from the table mildly miserable but contented.

With a bowl made for giants, you fill it up, and it fills you up, but you still want seconds so you put a little more in there of something, like cereal, and when you’re done, you are belly up on the couch moaning until sleep mercifully puts you out of your misery. This is not good for humans.

Giants, on the other hand, eat from giant-sized meal on a giant plate, then they have seconds, then they have a short nap before going out and roaming the countryside looking for gooses laying golden eggs. This is how it should be. The giant eats a hearty meal suitable to his size, and then walks it off.

In contrast, when humans are forced to eat using plates and bowls designed for giants, we fill the plates and plow through acres of food, stretching our stomachs every time we sit down to a meal like we’re in a hot dog eating contest, then we go back to work where we sit all day updating Facebook and Twittering, then go home and eat the same thing all over again and settle down for a few relaxing hours in front of the TV. We have consumed as many calories as the giant, through no fault of our own, but we don’t have that extra three or four feet of height. The extra calories have to go somewhere, and they decide the best place is our bellies, hips, thighs, ankles, under our arms and, yes, our jowls. What has made the giant a strapping specimen has made us hot air balloons.

If you want to know who is responsible for the obesity problem in America, you don’t need to look any further than plate and bowl manufacturers. And people who make Big Gulp cups and super-size containers for French fries. And the makers of boxes of candy in the movies that don’t even try to hide it – they say “GIANT SIZE!” right on the box. Same thing with popcorn and potato chips. Remember how a little bag of Lay’s chips would just hit the spot? Now the smallest bag you can get is, “GIANT SIZE.” Is it a conspiracy that these manufacturers, let’s call them “Communists” for want of a better word, are making us weak and ill from fat-related maladies so can they take over and rule the world? It certainly is food for thought.