Restaurants get a bad rap for serving gargantuan portions of food and contributing to Americans' expanding waistlines. But what if something in your home were equally guilty? Something as innocent as . . . "Joy of Cooking"?
The classic cookbook, first published in 1931, has done some girth-expanding of its own, a study has found.
Published as a letter Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the report examined 18 classic recipes found in seven editions of the book from 1936 to 2006. It found that calorie counts for 14 of the recipes have ballooned by an average of 928 calories, or 44%, per recipe. And serving sizes have grown as well.
Take beef stroganoff: In the 1997 edition, the recipe called for three tablespoons of sour cream. The 2006 edition calls for one cup.
Then there's waffles: In 1997, the basic recipe made 12 six-inch waffles; in 2006, the same ingredients made about six waffles.
Overall, the scientists found, changes in ingredients and serving sizes led to a 63% increase in calories per serving in 17 of the recipes between 1936 and 2006.
"When we talk about obesity, people like to plant the source of the issue on away-from-home dining," said Brian Wansink, the study's co-author and director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab. "But that raised the thought in my mind: Is that really the source of things?. . . . What has happened in what we've been doing in our own homes over the years?"
Wansink and co-author Collin Payne, assistant professor of marketing at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, said they wanted to quantify how home cooking had changed, but knew that doing it anecdotally wasn't scientific. So they turned to cookbooks, settling on "Joy of Cooking" because of its history and the fact that it had enough recipes carried through all editions.
In addition to beef stroganoff and waffles, recipes chosen for analysis included macaroni and cheese, goulash, Spanish rice, brownies, sugar cookies and apple pie.
Wansink said similar calorie increases were found in other enduring recipe books such as the "Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book."
The study found that some of the added calories in the dishes came from a substitution of ingredients -- extra meat instead of vegetables, for example. Back in the day, meat was expensive, so less of it was used, he said.
In other recipes, Wansink said, sauces were added, or more butter or sugar, or extras such as nuts and raisins. "They're now there for a little more excitement," he said.
