I think this is a threat we hear when we are younger from our parents: “Finish your food, young lady, or…” of course it’s followed by something terrifying like “you won’t be able to stay up until 8 p.m” or “you’ll go to bed hungry” or even “you won’t get to watch tv”. As a child, not finishing every grain of rice or every noodle of macaroni on our plates wasn’t that big of a deal. But for some half way around the world, a threat for not finishing their food could cost them some extra cash!

I read this morning on The Huffington Post Small Business page that a restaurant in Japan makes their customers give a donation of money if they don’t finish every grain of rice on a special plate (a large bowl of rice with a massive portion of salmon roe). Why? Well, it all comes down to the salmon on their plate and the fishermen that catch this salmon have such a risky job the restaurant wants to donate money to show their gratitude to those out their catching their dinner.

I’m sure a few sentences ago you were annoyed (like I was when reading The Huffington Post article), but now that you hear that this donation goes to a good cause, it doesn’t sound so bad!

After reading the article I started to think: “hmmm… if we had that consequence in America, mayyybeeee….”

Here’s my list of POSITIVE outcomes if we applied this to our sit-down restaurants in the U.S:

• Finally we’d take after the Europeans and have smaller portions. And don’t forget, smaller portions = self control = less over eating = decline in obesity.
• Smaller portions means less waste and less waste means a massive saving of money.
• A saving of money then means, maybe, that people who eat crappy food all the time would be able to afford to eat healthier (that’s just a thought… maybe?)
• Money could be made through the consequential donation and then used to help feed those that can’t afford healthy food (this would NOT be in the form of food stamps where you can buy nearly whatever you want, it’s for healthy food only).

Obviously I’m not naive — this could never be regulated in the U.S. But it still baffles me why we haven’t had any regulations on portion sizes in restaurants.

I know, I RARELY ever post about a “serious” topic — but I was just so stunned by this article I had to share it with you all. So now what I want to know is what you’re thinking… So tell me either in the comments below or if you don’t want your thoughts published you can click on the Contact Me tab and send me your comment that way!