The Clean Plate Club

As children we were taught to finish every piece of food on our plate.  It's such a common notion that most of us have instilled it in our own children.

It's a bizarre concept if you take a step back.... did we get to choose our own serving as a child?  No, so how could our parents possibly know how hungry we were?

The idea came about in the First World War, when food was scarce and people were poor.  The government created the Clean Plate Club, a campaign to make sure everyone ate enough food, especially the men, so they were fit and healthy for the army.

This common practice has now contributed to obesity around the world.  It's not our fault right? We were told to eat all of our food every day, apparently it was going to save the starving kids in Africa...  I'm still not sure how that one works.

Now, many of us believe we've finished eating dinner when our plate is clean, not when we feel full.

How do we change this mindset? It's not easy, but you can do it.

I tried hypnosis to lose weight a few years ago, and one of the things that stuck with me was when the hypnotist said to me, 'it either goes to waste, or it becomes waste.'

Now it might be an unpleasant thought, but follow me through this.
The food you don't eat,  goes in the bin as waste and the food you do eat, ends up being flushed down the toilet as waste.

Does it really make you feel better to have finished it, just for the sake of it not going to 'waste'? You'll end up flushing it down the toilet anyway... You can't mail the food to the children in Africa.

So as an exercise from now on, leave a small piece of food on your plate, and break the mentality.

It could just be one spoonful or 5, but give yourself the ability to stop eating on your terms. Not when your plate tells you to.

Scrape it into the bin, feed it to the pets, or slide it onto your partner's plate.

The more you do this the more you will be aware of your hunger and the amount that you eat.

Let me know how you go!