So let me get this right. If you want to lose weight you should eat in a crinkly plate?!
Really?
A crinkly plate, designed with ridges that reduces the amount of food it holds and intended to play tricks with the mind, is the brainchild of Latvian graphic designer, Nauris Cinovics, who says food would appear bigger than it
actually is.
“If you make the plate three-dimensional (with the ridges and troughs) it actually looks like there is the same amount of food as on a normal plate – but there is less of it,” says Cinovics.
“You are tricking the brain into thinking you are eating more.”
The plate, not yet out in the market, will be made of clear glass and could turn eating dinner into a more complex and longer process than it is usually for most of us.
Cinovics has also designed heavy cutlery, with the idea of making eating more of a labour – that therefore lasts longer. His knife, fork and spoon weigh 1.3kg each!
“We tested this and it took 11 minutes to finish a meal with this cutlery rather than seven minutes,” says the designer.
“Our brain takes at least 20 minutes to receive the message that we should feel full, so if we eat really fast we think we need more food – if we eat slowly the message gets through sooner so we eat less.”
If people think they have eaten a full plate of food they will feel more satisfied, says Dr Paul Christiansen from the University of Liverpool’s school of psychology.
“Many people think you have to finish the food on the plate. If you can satisfy the perception that they have a nice big portion on their plate, they will think they have eaten a full meal. If, on the other hand, you put a small
portion on a big plate, they will think they are not satisfied by it and will want more.
Professor Jane Ogden, professor in health psychology at the University of Surrey, thought it was an exciting possibility, which could be very helpful.
“There is lots of evidence that we eat for other reasons other than biological need – it is about habit, it is about perception, it is about what we visually perceive,” she says.
“Anything that can manipulate any of that could well be an effective way of eating less.”
More than 2.1 billion people – 30per cent of the world’s population – are obese or overweight.
“There are many ways to reduce weight — exercises, stress reduction, diets and others – however, it has been little studied how tableware design can contribute to weight loss by changing eating habits,” says Cinovics.
Research does show that fast eaters are up to 115pc more likely to be obese, compared to slower eaters and they tend to gain weight over time, which may be partially due to eating too fast.
In one study, researchers surveyed over 4,000 middle-aged men and women, asking them how fast they ate their food. Those who said they ate “very fast” tended to be heavier and had gained the most body weight since age
20.
Another study looked at the weight changes of 529 men over an eight-year period. Those who reported being “fast” eaters gained more than twice as much as self-described “slow” or “medium” eaters.
That said...would a crinkly plate really help individuals lose weight? I am yet to be convinced.