Use Older Cookbooks for fewer calories

Have you noticed a change in cookbooks? I have because I frequently go to my vintage 1960s edition of “The Joy of Cooking” in preference to the “new and improved” abomination they foisted on us in its last incarnation. Over at LifeHacker there is an interesting article claiming using older cookbooks is more healthful - at least from a caloric view point. Regarding the older version of JOC, chances are recipes in the latest edition contain 40 percent more calories than previous editions, according to a recent study.

That's mostly due to larger portions called for by the cookbooks, in which researchers found a general 40 percent increase in calorie counts across a 70-year span, or roughly 77 more calories each. In some cases, like with Joy of Cooking's brownie recipe, the pan size and ingredient list were identical, yet the recipe claimed to yield 15 brownies instead of 30, but in others the actual food output jumped as well to serve the same number of people.

So holding onto a tattered copy of an older cookbook isn't such a bad idea, it turns out. And, just because a recipe yields a larger helpings, you don't have to eat it all.