What Would Jesus Eat?

newsweek:

Here’s Begley, on how depictions of the food portions in paintings of the Last Supper have grown over the millenium:

Over the last 1,000 years, the portions and plates depicted in 52 paintings of the last meal Jesus ate with his apostles have grown bigger and bigger, finds a study to be published in the April issue of The International Journal of Obesity. From dishes to bread to entrees, it’s all been supersized, find marketing professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University and his brother, Craig Wansink, an ordained minister and professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College.

“We took the 52 most famous paintings of the Last Supper and analyzed the size of the entrees, bread and plates, relative to the average size of the average head in the painting,” said Brian Wansink. Over the last 1,000 years, the entrées have grown 69 percent; plate size, 66 percent; bread size, 23 percent. As art imitates life, he suggests, changes to larger portions and plate sizes “have been reflected in paintings of history’s most famous dinner.”