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AFPThe West Australian Researchers have found a new way to control the amount we eat: use a bigger fork. While numerous studies have focused on portion sizes and their influence on how much

we eat, researchers Arul and Himanshu Mishra and Tamara Masters looked at how bite sizes affect quantities ingested. To do this, they conducted field research in a popular Italian restaurant

in the United States. Two sets of forks were used to tinker with bite size: a bigger fork that held 20 per cent more food than the fork usually used in the restaurant, and a smaller fork

that held 20 per cent less than the usual utensil. Over two lunches and two dinners in the restaurant, tables were either "large fork" or "small fork" tables. Servers,

including one of the study's authors, took customers' orders, and weighed the full plate of food that they had ordered before serving it to them. At the end of the meal, the plate

was brought back to the kitchen and weighed again, and the researchers found that diners who used the bigger fork ate less of their food than those who used the smaller one. But the

big-fork, less-eaten theory only worked in a restaurant setting. A study conducted in the lab, which also used Italian food, found that people who used big forks actually consumed more. The

researchers, whose findings were published in the Journal of Consumer Research, concluded there are different motivations when we eat in a restaurant or a lab. Diners went to the restaurant

with a "well-defined goal of satiating their hunger, and, because of this well-defined goal, they are willing to invest effort and resources to satiate their hunger". In the lab,

participants were told they were taking part in a study and did not have that same motivation. The restaurant diners felt the small fork gave them "a feeling that they are not making

much progress" towards their goal, and this resulted in them eating more of the food on their plate than the large-fork group, the researchers reasoned. "Grandma's advice

tells us to consume small bites, but remember, she also tells us to chew well so that our body has enough time to let us know that we are full," the researchers said. "Given

people's busy lives and the growing trend of eating in restaurants, if we are not chewing longer, then consuming from a larger fork may actually be more helpful in controlling

over-consumption." GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM THEWEST.COM.AU IN YOUR INBOX. Sign up for our emails