Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Why Do my Plates Keep Yelling at me?

Put this one on your do-not-buy list.

Dr Hryhory Chausovsky, a Ukrainian scientist from the University of Zaporizhia's Life Activities Laboratory has invented the irritating plate (he calls it a talking plate).

The plate is quite small, 15cm in diameter and it's hooked up to a small computer and has a built in scale.

If the plate decides you've put too much food on it, it yells at you,

"Stop right there",

"What about excess weight?"

"Where's your willpower?"
Chausovsky apparently hasn't met really anyone with a background in nutrition. The problem with his vision, as I'm sure many of you are aware, is that weight alone does not dictate the nutritional or caloric content of a food. I don't want my heaping plate of salad yelling at me and asking me about my willpower.

The plate reminds me of a common occurrence in many households - Food Cops.

He or she is the guy that watches you carefully while you eat and asks "helpful" questions like, "Are you supposed to eat that?" and "How much of that are you allowed?".

Food cops aren't helpful. Instead of helping they push our buttons - buttons that once pushed, often lead to angry eating.

If you've got a food cop at home feel free to forward this blog where they can read the only question they're is ever allowed to ask you, and they're only allowed to ask it once. The question is,
"Is there anything that I can do to help you honey?"
And if the answer's no, no more questions.