Smaller portions please!

A recent letter from Wendy Barrow about being able to order smaller portions from the children’s menu to cut down on food waste prompted a big postbag. Thank you to everyone who wrote or emailed in. Below are some of your comments...

I wish all restaurants had a 'smaller appetite’ or ‘light bite' meal menu. I like nice food and proper meals, but cannot face the huge platefuls most pubs and restaurants serve up. My daughter says to just order what I like and leave the rest but, like Wendy, I don't like to waste food when it's unnecessary. Come on restaurants, you will cater for more of us if we can order what we know we'll eat. Denise Whitehorn, by email

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Reading Wendy’s letter, I recalled a holiday with four friends in Portugal last year. A group of pensioners, we used a particular restaurant several times and were known as ‘the big kids’ as we ate from the children’s menu, which had smaller portions we could eat and not waste. It was so good to have the choice. And even though we were ‘big kids’ they offered us complimentary port afterwards!

Carol Pick, by email

In America recently, my husband and I noticed that on the back page of the menu there were meals offered for pensioners or those with smaller appetites. What a brilliant idea – British cafés and restaurants please note! Barbara Brand, Sussex

How I agree with Wendy. I have been in several hotels and asked for a small portion, only to be told 'just leave what you can’t eat’. I feel so guilty about wasting food, particularly when there are so many starving people in the world. Rosemary Hiner, Cambridge