Food

We're happy to present this post from our partner site Yahoo! Shine:

A routine part of mealtimes for many families may actually be harming your kids. A new study has found that urging your kids to join the "clean plate club" by finishing all the food on their plates can prevent them from learning healthy eating habits.

Related: Are Parents to Blame For Childhood Obesity?

"In the 1950s, cleaning your plate meant something different," Katie Loth, a registered dietician and research assistant at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and was the lead author on the study, told HealthDay. "Portion sizes have gotten bigger over time, and if you encourage kids to rely on environmental indicators, like how much food is on their plates or the time of day, they'll lose the ability to rely on internal cues to know whether they're hungry or full."

Read on to learn more about the dangers of the clean-plate club.

If you're grumbling about your grocery bill, you might want to check out this Buzzfeed video that shows how far $5 goes in different countries. You'll quickly realize that there isn't that much of a difference in food prices between first-world countries.

It's interesting to see the huge disparity in food prices between developing nations and countries with a higher cost of living. For example, $5 gets you only eight pounds of potatoes in the US while scoring you 31 pounds of potatoes in Ethiopia.

Editor's note: The following guest post was written by Robert Reid, the US travel editor for Lonely Planet.

I always say the things we do when traveling — going to museums, climbing a tower for a view, sitting in a park, standing below an iconic monument — are simply the way we fill time between meals. It's the food, served in first-class restaurants or on plastic-stool seats on cracked sidewalks, that gives you more of a sense of how a place lives. And anyway, we have to eat, right? If you think this way too, Lonely Planet’s new Food Lover's Guide to the World is perfect for you.

Read on for more.

Did you know there are ways to improve your fast food experience? Business Insider shares a few tricks so you can enjoy fast food in a whole new way.

How can you make a fast food dinner even better?

By bypassing the menu and using these ordering tricks to get VIP treatment.

A Reddit forum revealed tips from fast food employees and savvy customers. We pulled out the best tricks that could enhance your next dining experience.

RELATED: The Fast Food World's Latest Trendy Buzzword Makes Things Seem Extra Fancy

We have tips for how to get the freshest fries at McDonald's, pay less for more food at Arby's, and make that Gordita Crunch even more delicious.

There are also tricks for better service at Chipotle, Starbucks, and Chick-Fil-A.

• Order your fries without salt at McDonald's. This will ensure you get the freshest fries, because they have to make them on the spot.
• Order absolutely anything you want at Outback. The company's "no rules, just right" culture means staff members have to meet your demands. One employee says he has seen people make custom omelettes at midnight or go to the grocery to get ingredients for a special request.
• You can incorporate a Dorito shell into your Cheesy Gordita Crunch at Taco Bell.
  It's just 30 cents extra for the delicious addition.
• You can customize your Jamba Juice. An employee says that you can order a smoothie with "light" or "extra" of an ingredient. You can also substitute any ingredient, and employees have to honor it.

Read on for more tips when ordering at restaurant chains.

Between meetings, appointments, work deadlines, errands, family obligations, and workouts, our lives are so full of activities that we often fill our bellies with the quickest, easiest bites we can get our hands on. Whether your goal is to drop unwanted pounds or to simply maintain your current weight, it's in your best interest to pause before you start haphazardly noshing and ask yourself these four important questions.

Am I hungry? Seems like a silly question, because you're eating — so you must be hungry, right? Many times people reach for food out of boredom, convenience (the bag of chips was open), depression (chocolate to drown your breakup sorrows), happiness (to celebrate a promotion), or desire (who could pass up the amazing cookies your coworker brought in?). But if you recently ate, then you're probably not truly hungry. Make sure you're due for a snack or meal before picking up the fork.

Is this food filling holes in my diet? We must eat to live, and that means the food we gobble down should offer our bodies the vitamins and nutrients it needs. Your daily diet should also be balanced. If you ate a high-protein breakfast of eggs and Greek yogurt topped with nuts, then reach for something that offers your body something besides protein for that midmorning snack, such as fiber, potassium, or vitamin A. Think of each snack and meal as a piece of your daily diet puzzle, an opportunity to take in what your body is lacking.

Keep reading to find out the other two questions you should ask yourself before eating.

What and how much you eat is extremely important when it comes to losing weight, but did you know where you eat can also be key? Eating in the wrong places can actually make you consume more or encourage you to snack on things you normally wouldn't. When you enjoy meals and snacks, make sure it's in one of these places.

• In public: When people eat alone, they tend to let go and may end up eating three times more than they normally would. If weight loss is your goal, try to eat in front of at least one other person. Even if you're alone, go out to eat at places such as at an Internet café, on a park bench, or at a coffee shop where other people are around. When you eat in public, it makes you conscious and accountable for what you put in your mouth, so you're less likely to overeat or eat foods you normally wouldn't.

Continue reading to see what other places can encourage weight loss.

The expensive dorm meal plan you're paying for might cover most of your meals, but hunger doesn't schedule itself around study sessions, and sometimes you're just too busy to make a stop at the cafeteria. Whether you're lucky enough to have a fully operational kitchen in your dorm room or you need to spin mealtime gold out of the proverbial straw, we've provided a few ideas on how to stock your pantry to ensure your hunger pangs don't undermine Chaucer or Copernicus.

What to stock if you have no appliances:

• Granola bars
• Tuna
• Crackers and chips
• Beef and turkey jerky
• Apples, bananas, and other fruits that don't require refrigeration

What to stock if you have a compact refrigerator and freezer:

• Cereal and milk
• Yogurt and cottage cheese
• Lettuce and fresh produce for salads
• Baby carrots and veggies for snacking
• Salad dressing
• Bread
• Cheese
• Sandwich meats
• Mayo, mustard, and other condiments
• Juices, soda, and other beverages

For food ideas if you have a microwave or hot pot, just keep reading.