Super-Size My Eucharist

Food is fleeting, so it's no wonder that here at TBATC we have not thought to ask, "What were portion sizes in Western Europe like 1,000 years ago?"

Maybe it's not a silver-dollar question, but two creative sibling scientists, Brian and Craig Wansink, did ask it, and they came up with an answer by looking at 52 paintings of the most documented meal in history, the Last Supper. Their report is just in time for Passover and Easter. With the help of computers, they compared the size of the food dishes—entrées of eel, fish, pork, and lamb—and the size of the plates those items were on with the head sizes of Jesus and the apostles. Human head size, it is fair to say, has not changed for thousands of years.

The Wansinks' report was published this Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity, whose apt logo is of an ever-widening oval. The size of the plates, they found, increased by 66%. The size of the plates grew in tandem with the size of the entrees, which also bloomed to 66%. But the size of the loaves increased only by 23%. (Michelle Obama, crusading against obesity while tilling her vegetable garden in designer sneakers, is yet to comment.)

I humbly suggest the next question for the Wansinks to explore: Should an artist looking to shed a few pounds buy himself smaller plates? For, if the artists of the 52 Last Supper paintings put smaller portions on smaller plates and larger portions on larger plates, wouldn't they do the same in life? After all, proportion and beauty must be maintained, and a plate's decorations must be on display. All this, for an artist, it could be sensibly argued, is part of enjoying the meal.