How’s your
appetite? If you have a taste for savings, you could be in just the right stage
of life.
As we age, our
capacity for ingesting large quantities of food seems to shrink. Put it another
way: We feel full faster.
That’s a good
thing, for at least a couple of reasons:
1. As noted in a
previous blog posting, longevity studies seem to indicate that cutting back on
the amount of food we take in may add a few years to our lives. If we naturally
feel like cutting back, so much the better.
2. Some
restaurants really seem to be piling the food on our plates. Not the ultra
high-end, Michelin-starred eateries, mind you. Their portions, though tasty,
tend to be smaller. Customers have complained about that. As a result, the less
well-regarded restaurants make sure that they give us more than enough food per
person to remain competitive. Customers say they like that (although obesity
statistics show that such joy may be misplaced). So here is where senior diners
are in really good shape, financially. Order a standard meal at Maggiano’s,
say, or The Cheesecake Factory, and you’ll have so much food left on your plate
by the time you’re full that you can ask for a doggy bag or box to take home.
Voila, lunch the next day, at no extra expense. In some parts of our nation
such as the over-stuffed Midwest , portions are
so large that my wife and I have ordered just a single dinner, split it, and
still felt fully satisfied by meal’s end. Dining for half price!
There are lots of
things about aging to be grumpy about, but eating isn’t usually one of them.
Eat less. Save more.
Bon appétit.