Category: Food

The Pareto Principle

August 24, 2026 By arne hendriks Off

The Pareto-principle (the 80/20 rule) and Hara Hachi Bu (eating until you are 80% full, leaving 20% empty space) seem unrelated at first glance. One is a mathematical management theory, while the other is an ancient Japanese wisdom from Okinawa. Yet, they share a deep,…

D(r)airy

April 19, 2026 By arne hendriks Off

The ideologies of economic and physical growth are inextricably linked with our food system. The bigger we are, the more we need. Hence the taller person is by default a more prolific consumer, both materially and because they primarily value accumulation itself over the quality…

20% Ma

March 30, 2026 By arne hendriks Off

The Incredible Shrinking Man has long been fascinated by Hara Hachi Bu, the practice of eating until only 80% full. This discipline does more than just limit intake; it creates, and honors, a 20% void. This intentional emptiness relates to the Japanese concept of Ma.…

Ozempic Meals

December 26, 2025 By arne hendriks Off

How to sell (almost) nothing. Approximately one in eight American adults are currently taking weightloss drugs. As the popularity of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy leads diners to eat and drink less, restaurants across the U.S. are shrinking portion sizes and redesigning menus. “I…

Abundance Fantasies: Canoe-sized Banana Peels

November 14, 2025 By arne hendriks Off

In the Abundance Fantasies we explore how to activate a deeply rooted desire for abundance to unlock a desire for less. Rather then grow towards scarcity we could shrink towards abundance. In a subplot to the 1973 Woody Allen dystopian scifi-comedy Sleeper, our hungry protagonists (Woody…

Okinawa Allowances

February 29, 2024 By arne hendriks Off

During a recent visit to the Japanese island of Okinawa in search of the secret of smaller we were lucky enough to end up at Marina’s Cafe. Not because the food was good (which it was), but because we met its owner Mariko, who explained…

Human-sized Penguin

July 20, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

Global warming is causing many species of animals to shrink. That is why we’re intrigued by this counter-intuitive RESEARCH on prehistoric giant penguins. Most penguin species today are small to average sized flightless birds that live in the colder regions of the southern hemisphere. They…

Fry-Denial

December 23, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

In 2014 The Incredible Shrinking Man picked up on a story about Japanese McDonalds restaurants resorting to only selling small fries because of a frozen potato shortage. It seemed like a good idea. Now the Makudo’s or Makku’s, as they are called in Japan, are…

No Small Fish

February 10, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

One of many food-related ecological challenges is the overconsumption of fish. Worldwide, especially in the global south, fish is still a key component of a nutritious and healthy diet. Until we find and are able to produce widely available and sustainable alternatives (which we must)…

Shrink Exercise: Peel a Pomelo

January 24, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

“Peel a Pomelo” is a simple exercise allowing you to experience what it’s like to be smaller then you are. The trick is to hand-peel a pomelo while imagining you are peeling a mandarin. The pomelo (Citrus maxima) is the largest member of the citrus…

Rafting Monkeys

June 7, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

We know of only three species of pre-historic mammals that managed to cross the Atlantic ocean between Africa and South-America. One of them was the now extinct Ucayalipithecus monkey about 35 million years ago. The other species of “immigrant” mammals were New World Monkeys, flat-nosed…

Guts for Brains

January 12, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

The human brain is generally regarded as the organ that makes us stand out from all other life. People have unusually large brains in relation to the size of the body: About 3x larger than the brain of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. And…

Micro-Livestock’s Short Shadow

October 18, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, a 2006 report released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, assesses the impact of the livestock sector on environmental challenges, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The livestock sector poses serious challenges to the environment at every…

Abundance Fantasies: Mukbang

April 9, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

In our series of abundance fantasies we investigate if and how the human desire for abundance can become a positive force for change. Most abundance fantasies revolve around an illustration of the central promise that if we act in a certain way we will be…

Shrink Exercise: Giant Vegetable Hugging

March 28, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

Hugging a giant vegetable initiates a light-hearted feeling of pleasure and relaxation, as well as the experience of being in the presence of a messenger from the future when the human species has become a lot smaller and the world is again a place of…

The Makhunik Ceiling

January 10, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

About a century ago the residents of Makhunik in eastern Iran may have measured just 100cm tall – some 50cm shorter than the average height of their contemporaries. Of the roughly 200 stone and clay houses that make up the ancient village, some 70 or…

Deaf Fish

December 12, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

A recent study shows that every second farmed salmon we eat is deaf resulting of a deformity in the ear, caused by accelerated growth in aquaculture. The study’s lead author, Ms Tormey Reimer, says when they went looking for the cause of the deformity they…

Vechur A2 Milk

November 27, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

The Incredible Shrinking Man is not big on dairy because it promotes excess growth in the body. But we’ll make an exception for the milk of the tiny Vechur cow originating from the warm and humid climate of the state of Kerala in southern India. According…

Land Reclamation

November 5, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

It is certainly not a coincidence that the Dutch are known for their expertise in the process of land reclamation. They live surrounded by the sea and The Netherlands are a small country. Yet the most obvious reason for the Dutch desire to create new…

Kleiber’s Law

September 10, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

Large animals have slower metabolisms than small ones. A mouse must eat about 35% of its body mass every day not to starve whereas a human can survive on only 2%. The relationship follows a power law: basal metabolic rate (R) is proportional to the…