Big Forks

Could this be the latest diet fad?

From Good...

[A]s food portions have increased in size, so have Americans. The connection might seem obvious. But new research into the psychology of eating suggests that in some cases, more can actually mean less.

Researchers swapped in forks that were either 20 percent smaller or 20 percent larger than your standard utensil. After weighing each dish before and after the meal, they found that students wielding the bigger forks ate less than those eating off the smaller ones.

Here's one theory: When eating with a small fork, each forkful hardly makes a dent in the dish. But with bigger forks, each bite marks measurable progress in the consumption of the meal. If the researchers are right, fork size could be the quickest dietary fix since chewing. "[I]f we are not chewing longer," they write, "then consuming from a larger fork may actually be more helpful in controlling overconsumption."