When you are entertaining, you should only take out the amount of cheese you plan on using. This may seem obvious. But, many times, we forget that even though we may have a half-pound of Stilton, it may not be the best idea to serve the entire piece unless we know it will all be eaten.

We all know that portion sizes have increased over the course of the last few decades. Every so often, TV programs and newspapers run a picture of an original McDonald's hamburger next to today's Big Mac, to emphasis how much more we're eating. Today Divine Caroline ran a feature that shows a variety of foods as they used to be portioned. It's interesting to see how pizza slices have grown, as well as coffee, soda and even our plates and bowls. As I mentioned before, it probably won't be news to anyone, but it is interesting as it will get you to thinking about portion size and how much food you're putting on your dish (at least for the couple of hours after you read it).

It's hard to tell how many calories something has just by looking at it. We already know what an ounce of nuts looks like - but what do servings of other common foods look like? Wisegeek took pictures of 200 calories portions of 71 common food items, including everything from staples like flour, cornmeal, oil and butter to muffins, ketchup, bacon, Powerbars and Tootsie Pops. They every carefully cut down the items that were more than 200 calories per piece to provide the most accurate visual example possible. Measurements are given in grams or milliliters, as well as calories. And as an additional bonus, every item was shot on the same plate, bowl or glass, so the size of each item can easily be compared to its neighboring items.

Now, calories aren't the only thing to take into consideration when planning your diet, but it is still nice to see that one glazed donut doesn't have quite as many calories as a bakery muffin or a bagel because it makes it that much easier to enjoy every once in a while.

For years, binge-eating has been thought to be an almost entirely secretive, private habit, but some new research by Dr. Gayle Timmerman of the University of Texas at Austin's School of Nursing shows that binge eating may be more likely to occur in restaurants, especially for women. Binge eating is overeating compulsively and in a restaurant that can translate to ordering an appetizer and a dessert when you might only otherwise have been hungry enough for one main course. Women tended to take in an extra 200-300 calories and about 15 grams of fat when they ate out.

The frequency with which the study participants, as well as people in general, eat out is one of the biggest causes for concern. The participants went to a restaurant or got take out on half of all the days they were in the study and when meals out get that frequent, they are no longer "special occasions" calling for indulgence, though that is the mindset than many still have. Another problem is portion size which, when combined with restaurants' "ample delicious food cues," can cause even a disciplined eater to press on with eating when they should have stopped.

The single biggest factor that prompts people into overeating is portion size, and when more and more meals are eaten outside of the home, it is restaurant portion size that can cause a problem. Not only are the portions often huge, but they set a benchmark that distorts what people perceive as an appropriate amount of food.

An obesity researcher at Penn State University had 300 chefs from fine and casual dining restaurants take a survey that asked what things influence what size they make their portions. 4 out or 5 served more than the recommended portion sizes. 70% said that presentation was the biggest concern, getting a "wow" factor into the dining experience that might cause a customer to return. Value and portion size are often connected in the minds of the consumers, so larger servings come into play more than the actual plating. 65% said that cost influenced how much food they served, and 52% cited "expectations, which was primarily true of chain-restaurants and categories (like steakhouses, for example) that are known for being generous. Only 16% considered calories.

Chefs are not necessarily dieticians and their job is not to tell you what to eat or how much of you plate to clean before taking the rest home. It does make you wonder, however, if our priorities and theirs are in the right place when a 1-pound "serving" of pasta starts to look normal.

In the NY Times last week, professor Brian Wansink talked about some of his research on how people have relatively little concept of what they're eating and usually take visual cues from outside sources, rather than from their own bodies about fullness. He mentioned a test that involved giving participants stale and fresh popcorn in different-sized containers that showed people would eat more from the larger container - even if that was the stale popcorn. That is not the only experiment that he and his colleagues did to support their position, however. They have a whole repertoire of experiments that demonstrate the same results. The tests answered these questions:

• Do even educated eaters fall prey to mindless eating based on container size?
• Does a food or a wine label affect how people feel about their meal and how much they eat?
• How hard is it to correctly estimate portion size based on container size, and how can the shape of a container make you consume more?
• Does how food is described change consumption rates?
• Do visual clues help slow down mindless snacking?

The answer is "yes" to each of these questions and they way they got to that answer in each case was interesting. Re-naming peas as "power peas" got kids to eat more. Educated eaters still binged when given oversized bowls and color-coding chips so people could see exactly how much they were eating helped them to eat less. The tests don't necessarily tell us anything new, but it's always interesting to see how people react in these different situations anyway. In fact, it's sort of tempting to try them out on coworkers in the break room or, if you have a child that needs to do a science project, questions like these could be a good starting point.

It's tradition for Syrian/Sephardic Jewish families to come together and cook - a lot - during the celebration of Sukkot at the beginning of October. Many dishes are passed from mother to daughter and have been for years, perhaps centuries. "You want to make it perfect, just like your grandmother did."

Time and time again, Prof. Brian Wansink has proved that people have very little concept of how much they're actually eating. He uses experiments that test whether people use outside cues, as opposed to a feeling of fullness, to determine how much to eat. He works with food companies (unpaid) to help them reduce their portion sizes and promote healthier snacking in more reasonable amounts.

Clinton seems to be set on his mission to help kids eat healthier.

Yuzu can really brighten up fish and other dishes. Try it instead of lime if you find it at your local market.

Julia Moskin eats at NoLIta and gives it 1 star.

The more food that is put in front of you, the better the odds are that you will overeat or, at least, eat more than you might otherwise. Generally, this is common knowledge, but some researchers put it to the test by giving people both good and bad tasting foods. Specifically, while one group of participants got varying sizes of freshly popped popcorn, another group was given 2-week old stale popcorn (described as "perfectly safe, just a bit funky"). The results proved the theory, when fresh popcorn eaters ate 43% more popcorn when it was served in a large container and stale popcorn eaters ate 34% more.

If the taste of a food isn't enough to stop people from eating it, it's best to control the size of the container that it's in. So do yourself a favor and use smaller plates and bowls, especially for snacking. Or fill up a bowl with healthy fruits and veggies for munching.

Exact portion size can be difficult to determine without measuring (which is an option), but there's too much variation in all those guidelines that compare portion sizes to, for example, the size of a fist. When in doubt, just take a little less that you think you should. At the very least, you'll be eating one less bite at a time - and over time, even a small change like will add up.

Out of all the food trends we heard about back in December and January, there was one that is clearly becoming a big deal on th packaged food scene: miniature packaging, aka 100-calorie packs. "100 calories!" seems to be the hot new slogan on food products these days. The past three years have seen the market for portion-controlled packets go from 0 to more than 25 different foods. USA Today reports that 18 of the new products were introduced in 2005 alone. With more coming along this year, there is no indication that this trend is slowing.

Some of the newer products include 100-calorie sodas from brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Shasta. These sodas have a mere 8-ounces per can, fewer than the more standard 12-ounces, and are marketed as being more portable than their full-sized counterparts. Coco-Cola says that they're marketed at consumers who wish to "improve their snacking and drinking opportunities."

As Super Bowl Sunday rolls around and some of you get ready to have people over for drinking and snacking, a pre-new-year's-eve post of mine comes to mind. Some of you may remember a recent study from Cornell University professor and "food psychologist" Brian Wansink, where we learned that glass size affects how much people pour. Short, wide glasses resulted in people (even trained bartenders) pouring more liquor than with tall, thin glasses.

Another Wansink-led study last year focused on snacking and bowl size. As you can imagine, people tended to eat lots more, 56 percent more, when they were plucking Chex mix from big bowls rather than small ones. In that study, the extra snacking broke down to 142 calories more per person.

Obviously, if your beer is coming from a can or a bottle, everyone will probably have their own, and if you have a keg, a red plastic cup is probably in order. But, if your guests are mixing drinks, the glass size is good to keep in mind. And, if you've got limited amounts of snackage, small bowls could be in order.