Study Finds Calorie Content of Classic Recipes on the Rise

A recent article claims that some Joy of Cooking recipes have significantly increased in serving size and caloric content when compared to their original 1936 versions. Brian Wansink and Collin Payne, “The Joy of Cooking Too Much: 70 Years of Calorie Increases in Classic Recipes,” Annals of Internal Medicine, February 2009. The authors identified a 37.4 percent rise in average caloric density (or calories per serving) for the 18 recipes published in all seven editions of the iconic cookbook. They attributed this trend to a combination of larger serving sizes and an increase in overall calories per recipe, which the study linked to the availability of inexpensive ingredients. “There’s so much attention that’s been given to away-from-home eating and so much attention that’s been focused on restaurants and the packaged food industry, it makes me wonder whether it’s actually deflecting attention from the one place where we can make the most immediate change,” stated Cornell University Marketing Professor Brian Wansink, who co-authored the article with New Mexico State University Professor Collin Payne. See MSNBC.com, February 17, 2009.