 One of the keys to sustaining improvements in the way we eat is the ability to practice moderation in our diets. As a society, we tend to take an all-or-nothing approach to food, eating too much of something or trying to eliminate that food or category of foods altogether. That tendency towards extremes becomes even more obvious when we look at what's happened to the food on the shelves of our local supermarkets. On the one hand, we've supersized everything, and on the other hand, we see claims like fat-free and sugar-free everywhere in the supermarket, and these claims attract us because they're absolute. But, if we can master the skill of eating with moderation, then no single food needs to be forbidden. We can eat the foods we enjoy as long as we don't consume too much of them. How much we eat is a very important question, and how to regulate our appetite or moderate our appetites is very hard for people. We are socialized to eat until we're full. That's not a natural thing, and it's not a universal thing. In France, when you're hungry, you say, je fends, I have hunger, and at the end of the meal, you don't say, I am full, and you don't ask your children, are you full? You say, je n'ai plus faim, I am no longer hungry. That's very different than being stuffed. The moment at which you're no longer hungry is many bites before the time when you're stuffed, and we ask our kids the wrong questions. We say, are you full? We should say, are you satisfied? Are you still hungry? So you see, there are cultural ways and mores and manners that help us deal with quantity in food, so we have to look at things like portion size. We have to look at things like the way we talk about food. Are people really looking for lots of calories when they eat? I think they're looking for lots of food experience, an intense, satisfying food experience, and if you look at the French and many other cultures as well, they get more food experience with less food, and they do that partly by eating more slowly, eating socially, eating better quality food. There is a trade-off between quality and quantity, and the American food system is very much organized around quantity. And in fact, one of the biggest contributors to the obesity epidemic has been our tendency to consume enormous quantities of low quality food. This is not to suggest that the foods we eat need to be expensive, but we need to spend our food budget wisely on the foods that will support both good health and enjoyment. Well, what about having less of the better food and approaching it that way, so that every bite is enjoyable? You'll notice, everyone will notice that whenever you're sitting down to eat, the first bite is the best, and the Chinese have a saying, the banquet is in the first bite. So let's focus on those first few bites, smaller portions of better quality food. I wrote Food Rules, my book of rules about eating, to examine how different cultures deal with this question of moderation. Many cultures have a rule that basically says stop eating before you're full. Japanese say Harahachi Bu, eat until you're 80% full. That's such a foreign concept to us, but you find this across the board, the Chinese say eat until you're 75% full. In the Quran it says you should eat until you're two-thirds full. Everything but 100%, which is what most of us do. Next time you're going to eat something, ask yourself a few questions about it. Will this food bring me pleasure, or am I eating it because it's a food that I feel I'm allowed to eat? Eating foods that don't bring you any pleasure is another form of taking in empty calories, because they're empty of enjoyment. The very next question to ask about a food you're considering eating is this. Is this food worthy of me? And by this I mean, will this food support me in achieving all of the things I want to achieve in the long run, including good health? If the answer to this question is yes, then the very next question is, how much of this food do I really need to eat to feel satisfied, knowing that I can have it again tomorrow or later this week, because I've mastered the art of moderation? Each day should include moderate amounts of food that bring us pleasure. Moderation allows us to live at peace with our food, knowing that subtle variations won't be enough to destabilize a healthy relationship.