“Last Supper” Studied For Clues about Portion Control

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 | by Pat's Picks

Super-sizing didn’t start with McDonalds. According to a new study, it started with Jesus. The LA Times has the details on some odd new research, conducted by two brothers, which looked at paintings of the “Last Supper” to determine when portions began increasing in the Western diet. After studying depictions of “history’s most famous dinner party” painted between 1000 and 2000, they found that the apostles’ entrees increased by about 70 percent. The amount of bread increased by 23 percent and even the size of the plates grew - by 63 percent.

Read an abstract of the study, published online by the International Journal of Obesity