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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

As an Aussie living in North America I can tell you that portion sizes over here have absolutely zero to do with what people can actually eat.

Even though they've eliminated Super Size (since the movie) the large coke at McDonald's USA is still massively bigger than the large in Australia

More is more.

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Something it took me a week or so to realise in the US is that at restaurants, no one really expects you to eat the entire meal - portions are such that you couldn't possibly go home hungry, which seems to lead to a lot of wastage.

Restaurant portions are much smaller in Australia (as you'd know), but generally people will eat the entire plate, and maybe an entrée (starter) too.

This doesn't really apply to fast food, though - since if you want less food you can just order a small. My girlfriend and I would order two burgers and share a small chips & drink in the US because the portions were so large.

Small nitpick: s/wastage/waste

Smaller nitpick ;) https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wastag...

Thanks! I thought I had checked. I learned something today!

> no one really expects you to eat the entire meal

True. It is completely accepted to take leftover food home from all but the highest of high class restaurants. A typical restaurant dish will make up something like 1-3 servings.

A variety of reasons might be at play, but I think the lack of social inhibition for taking food home is part of it. Most restaurants will ask if you'd like a box if there is food remaining at the end of your meal.

Indeed. I believe this is so because restaurants here do not want anyone to go hungry. That includes people who are rather large. If you must guarantee that people up to say 400 lbs always go home satisfied by giving them enough food, there will be way too much food for someone who is 100-200 lbs. This does place the burden of portion control on the eater, which can be problematic for the eater, but is not so for the restaurant. A much worse fate for the restaurant would be losing customers permanently because they did not serve enough food. There is only one restaurant in the US that I've ever been to that didn't provide enough food and I will never go back to it. (I'm around 200 lbs so I'm not expecting a whole ton either.)

Some fast food restaurants, including many if not most standalone McDonalds do more business through the drive-through window than in the seating area. So, if people decide they want more of something, or want a dessert, they can't really go back. Since the cost of the actual beverage or French fries is negligible compared to the other sunk costs, it just makes sense to give people a quantity that is "sufficient".

BuzzFeed did a short video on this and the US and Australian McDonalds large are very similar.

http://i.imgur.com/UJMBMEA.png

It is BuzzFeed though -- so who knows.

Hmm, that's odd. When I was in the US, fast food restaurants tended to have much larger cup sizes - with hard plastic rather than a paper cup in the large size, presumably for stability (like [1]). In that comparison image, the small would be an Australian medium, the medium a Large and a US large size only available at cinemas who have enormous cups.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/g8qLjAQ.jpg

The largest size purchasable in Germany at McDonalds is 400ml, less than one pint.

I wish they'd textually labeled the countries. Maybe I'm geographically illiterate.

Japan, India, HK, UK, Australia, USA, Canada, Singapore

Tiny city-states are not known for being particularly recognizable unless you've been there.

In Australia, the Large is the biggest size you can purchase. I believe in the US there's another, larger size?

There used to be. Now it's just S/M/L (plus a very small children's size) which are 16/21/32 oz.

This is also another pricing curiosity. Who buys a large when there are free refills? I guess I don't understand it, but I gave up drinking everything that is in a fountain many years ago. When I eat out I usually just don't drink anything except coffee or water.

You raise another important point - Australia doesn't have free refills, for any size.

You buy a large if you aren't staying in the restaurant. Drive thru and to go!

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