Here’s a question that the Hardee’s people recently lobbed my way: What would happen if a Thickburger jumped into a cold swimming pool?

 

Hmm. Grease slick? Lettuce clogging the filter? One of those formerly wild geese that should be heading south for the winter gliding in for a landing to snap up the scraps?

 

Nope. Shrinkage.

 

It’s a little joke, Hardee’s way of rolling out their new “Little Thickburgers.” Perhaps sensing American’s growing unease with rampant over consumption, they’ve scaled down the size of the monstrous 1/3-pound Thickburger to a mere quarter pound, but in a press release they note that “even so, they still rival the size of most other chains’ big burger offerings.”

 

It’s an interesting concept that “little” still means “big” at Hardee’s. But who can blame them? It’s a shift that’s been going on for a good while. In the past couple of decades, manufacturers have increased the diameter of dinner plates, dishwashers have grown to accommodate the plates and updates of classic cookbooks like “The Joy of Cooking” have upped their serving sizes to accommodate our growing plates and appetites. The New York Times recently reported that in 1970, the average American consumed 16.4 pounds of food a week, or 2.3 pounds daily. In 2006, that amount grew by 1.8 pounds a week.

 

Know what? I have the answer to all this. It’s not education or diet or exercise. It’s simpler than that. If everyone went grocery shopping in the nude, I believe that we’d all make better choices. Perhaps I’ll add the idea to my presidential platform!