DNA Holiday Tip #4: Little Plates

Ah, the buffet, and especially the holiday buffet. Truckloads of delicious special once-a-year dishes, and you want to try ALL of them. Inevitably several of them are not exactly on your plan, and it's easy to load a big plate and eat much more than you need.

Humans are hardwired to clean our plates, to avoid starvation, but few Americans are actually in danger of starving. Instead, our survival instincts cause us to pig out, and resistance is very challenging, especially in the face of mashed potatoes soaked in butter.

Here's a simple, easy-to-follow tip to help with buffets:

Use a salad (or dessert) plate, not a dinner plate.

Uncle Earl may look at you funny, but if you load a 7" plate with food and avoid going back for seconds (go play football, or do some burpees, or something), you're likely to eat something resembling a reasonable meal, rather than a Roman feast.

You can easily use this trick year-round at home. World Market sells a set of twelve 8" plates with a storage rack, which can be used as dinner plates instead of the usual cymbal-sized plates. Give it a try!