What does that weigh?

 

Ever seen the romantic comedy, "Forget Paris"? The film centers on a group of friends and their spouses who are sitting around a table in a restaurant, waiting for the final couple to show up. While they wait they swap stories and sip drinks. One of the wives plucks out the olive out of her martini and plops it on to her food scale. "Look at how much an olive weighs," she says. 

Turns out despite being roughly the size of a quarter, olives carry a lot of heft. A serving size is only 6 olives. Trust me, it makes for one pathetic looking salad. Ever since I decided to follow the "Forget Paris" character's footsteps and start weighing my own food, I've been amazed about the weight of food. Who knew a strand of dried pasta, that is thinner than a twig, could drive up the scale's number? I find this discovery equal parts fascinating and horrifying. The first week I exercised this practice of measuring food, I didn't think I would make it. Looking at my portions, which looked so sparse on the dinner plate, I dramatically thought I would never survive. My stomach would constantly be disgruntled; it would growl and rumble with hunger. Surprisingly, that isn't what happened. 

I once called scales the devil's invention; all they did was make me feel horrible about myself. The bathroom scale had a good inch of dust on it before I sent it to its final resting place in the garbage. Now, scales feed my curiosity as I plop various food stuffs on the kitchen scale to see how much they weigh.