Smallist

Minnie’s of Chicago makes a diner-sized assortment of miniature sandwiches. No plans to franchise yet, unfortunately — I guess they’re wary of overexpansion.

Via Springwise.

As much as I hate to link to the Daily Mail, they’ve got an article on little tomatoes called “tomberries,” which make cherry tomatoes look like beefsteak tomatoes. They go on sale today in the UK. The BBC has another pic here.

I hate the concept of bag clips, because they’re the sort of thing that collect ominously in utensil drawers, and which you can never find when you need, and which adds about 5 seconds of inconvenience to an impulse activity. This bag-folding demo could end the reign of the clip.

Via Lifehacker.

Ah, the humble peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Eating it at lunch instead of a hamburger will save 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas. And every 16 sandwiches will save a chicken. Assuming, I guess, you were going to eat chicken instead. No word on how many of those sandwiches you’ll have to eat to save a cow, but I’d imagine it’s quite a few cans of Smuckers.

This is all according to the PB&J campaign.

Coolhunting has a nice portable and tabletop grill roundup. I really like the flower-box grill, called Bruce.

Here are two bowls. Both are from Target, both are attractive, both are inexpensive. The one on the left holds four cups of cereal. The one on the right, which I believe was sold as a rice bowl, holds one cup of cereal. Guess what a serving size of cereal is? Yep, generally it’s about 3/4 cup, 150 cal. Assuming you don’t measure your cereal in the morning, and just fill to 3/4 of the bowl, switching bowls will save you about 450 calories a day, and make your box of cereal last four times as long.

Will you notice? Yeah, kind of, but not as much as you’d think. Because we determine that we’re full by visual cues. So if you can find an 8oz bowl, go for it. As for that little bowl, it was made by Zazen for Target, but they don’t seem to sell them anymore.

This was on digg yesterday, but their server was getting digged to death. 300 calorie meals, all of which look substantial, balanced, and tasty. The pictures come from MyPhotoDiet. I think it works even better if you compare the properly-sized meal with an equivalent portion of junk food, as I’ve done below. Forgive the crappiness of the photoshops below; I have to go to a buffet.

A Leonard Lopate Please Explain segment on appetite and hunger. Apparently it’s all about portion size, and visual cues on how much we’ve eaten. Among the highlights: Author Brian Wansink rigged restaurant tables with bottomless tomato soup bowls, which would refill via a hidden tube under the table. Participants ate 77% more when the soup just kept coming, and reported no greater level of fullness. Brian’s book looks like a fun read, too.

After learning about modern refrigerators’ Sabbath option, I was interested to see how far you could take the notion of electricity-free cooling. Turns out the Amish have been using this clay water cooler for years.

The Amish are a bit more tech savvy than we might imagine: cellphone use among businessmen, for instance, is pretty common. This essay details some of the decisions the Amish have made about specific technologies. Kitchen appliances, for instance, are often modified to run on compressed air, and computers are sometimes modified to run on car batteries. And those buggies they ride used to be wood (obviously), but are now made of fiberglass.

But back to that water cooler: In Africa, a similar technology is used to refrigerate all foods: the Zeer pot, which won its owner a Rolex award, keeps food cool through two locally produced ceramic pots, the larger lined with sand and water. As the sand evaporates, the inner pot enjoys passive cooling. I’d guess this won’t work if you live in a humid climate, though.

AOL has this little quiz about the calories in restaurant fare. I’m a bit calorie neurotic in my day-to-day existence, but I usually let it all go when I’m out on the town. Granted, having the bloomin’ onion at Outback might not be “out on the town”, but the lesson applies just as well to any restaurant food: size matters. (thanks Carrie!)