I have personally seen a Zombie Last Supper picture, a Last Supper with dogs  ( no cats), and a Last Supper featuring the members of the Sopranos- all which have been controversial to Christians. I never once thought to consider the size of the portions of the meals that those attending the Last Supper were eating, but fortunately, researchers at Cornell University have thoroughly examined the sizes of the most popular last suppers throughout the millennium and discovered that the size of the meals are two-thirds larger than they were in the past.


The initial research was not done by religious scholar, but  instead by researchers studying obesity and culture and was published in the International Journal of Obesity. To determine the size of the food portions on the plates, the researchers selected 52 paintings of the Last Supper and utilized computers and scanning equipment to analyze each picture in order to compare it to the others.  The portions for the plates increased by 66 to 67%.

This is definitely a case where art is a reflection of society. Portions everywhere for every kind of food are definitely larger.  As the professor of religious studies interviewed by the BBC put it: "There is no religious reason why the meals got bigger. It may be that meals really did grow, or that people just became more interested in food."

In the United States in the past 50 or so years, it appears that much of the “junk food” portions have increased by tremendous amounts, and are probably out-pacing the rate of the Last Supper portraits, as well as the rest of the world. French fries, for example, have nearly tripled in size since the 1950’s, muffin sizes have doubled, and the size of a standard chocolate bar has increased from an ounce to 2.6 ounces, which could account for much of the obesity that the United States is facing right now.

It’s not just fast food restaurants who are increasing the size of their portions- if you look at cookbooks like the “Joy of Cooking”,  portion sizes have sharply increased over the last few years, as did the caloric intake for many of the meals. http://www.arthritistoday.org/news/recipe-calories-increase.php