Exactly the method we use! And yes, we eat the whole pizza too. I didn't know there was such a thing as left over pizza;)

Anyone with children understands the value of this method.

Haha, my SO and I always fight over the SMALLER plate.

Huh. My boyfriend and I actually argue over who is going to have the responsibility of eating the remainder of our meals or who is going to seal up the leftovers. I guess we just make giant meals each time.

I split things evenly, and then eat what she can't finish. :)

My mother, King Solomon, instituted this method of dividing the last brownie amongst the kiddo. It results in molecular precision.

But I'm a lot smaller than my husband and I DO eat a lot less.

My husband and I don't have this problem--we both offer the larger portion to the other (maybe this kindness will wear off after a few years of marriage?)--but this method was pretty standard when I was a kid. Not just at my house but with most of my friends as well.

My Mother used this method on my sister and I. My sister always used the "ha that is the piece I wanted" method of trying to do what i don't know.

Ah, the old "you cut, I choose" method. A great tool for family harmony.

this reminds me about how my brother used to claim the piece he wanted. When mom and dad had their backs turned, he would lick it. Thank goodness he has outgrown that behavior, almost.

I used to tell my younger sister that I'd cast a spell on the big piece of cake or the last chocolate chip cookie. It worked like a charm.

My family did that when I was growing up; now that I'm off with my spouse, we don't have too many of these issues but I'm still trained to split it as evenly as possible.

We throw it all into the blender and frappe it, and then pour it out into separate his 'n hers calibrated beakers, and then weight it on a kitchen scale to be sure. Not! We just serve it up and don't worry about who gets more.

my kids hate it when i impose this method...or should i say, one of them does.

I can't say that my husband and I worry about who's going to get two more bites of food. That... that seems kinda sad and control freakish.

@whatyousay - this is what my husband and I have been doing for 26 years. I wouldn't worry about it wearing off.

Isn't there a peanut butter commercial about this? Anyway, I always put more food on my husband's plate. Physiologically, he needs more food than I do, so I figure it's a good habit to maintain...if I tried to keep up with him, I'd definitely put on a few pounds!

I always make way more food than we need, and we serve ourselves. When we've eaten our fill, we package up whatever's left in the serving dish and put it in the freezer. No need to worry about keeping things fair, and we always have a freezer stocked with leftovers for the nights that I don't feel like cooking.

We either use the "I cut, you choose" or "I cut and give you the bigger piece" methods.

I learned this from "Encyclopedia Brown" as a kid. I don't remember every case, but that one stayed with me. Also, the one where the sister couldn't have been playing the cello because she was wearing a tight skirt.

My mom used this tactic for my brother and I sometimes. I generally make enough dinner to have plenty of leftovers, so hubby and I never really even think about who gets how much food, because there is extra.

Yah, I'm with the group that cooks/orders more than two people could possibly eat but honestly, while we are both great eaters and fairly competitive, whoever serves is more likely to give the other person the more generous or better browned or more lovely dish. We enjoy feeding each other great food :)

We do the divvying the same way as you! My husband can be quite greedy with food. You'd think he was raised in a Russian orphanage! So we developed the same plan over the years. Of course, now I encourage him to make my serving about 1/3 the size of his because he's still a pig and I was getting really fat because I can't stand to waste.

We normally do something similar to make it fair, though my normal tendency is to eat more than my bf since he is SO picky! The funny thing is, since we started to work out more and get healthier - I'm losing weight and he wants to gain (muscle) weight - we've agreed that he always had to eat more than me to aid our respective goals. I have to say it works only half the time =)

We tend to serve up however much each of us is hungry for. My husband eats more than I do, but he also LOVES to spoil his dinner by eating snacks in the hour before the meal (I don't mind because he loves it so). If he's eaten a lot beforehand, our portions are similar.

If we're having sandwiches, I'll usually offer him a giant bite or two of mine, which keeps me from eating too much out of gluttony.

My wife and I just sort of intuitively know who will want a bigger portion of any particular dish. So I always get more than half of the chips from my favorite burrito place, she gets the bigger servings of pasta, etc. Really this system is mostly just me getting what I want, because I tend to care and she doesn't. It's a loving gesture on her part.

I laughed when I read above about deciding who gets the responsibility of leftovers; I feel so lucky to have married someone who actually wants to eat all of the leftovers- I never have to.

My wife and I split everything in half, but my half is way bigger.

I can see having to do this if you have kids, but I can't imagine being competitive over food with another adult. We make enough food at dinner time so that we can have enough to eat. If we want more, we just serve ourselves up some more. We were both raised to not take the last bit of something and always offer it to each other before finishing something off. This method (kindness?) works pretty well for us.

As kids, my brother and I always did the "I dish, you choose" method. I thought that was standard knowledge.

As a father and husband, I feed everyone else first. I take joy in the wife and kids having a great meal and seeing them satisfied.

I will eat whatever is left. Then, if there are enough for leftovers, my wife generally takes them to work. If there are still leftovers, I score and get a second great meal!

My dad and I have been doing this since I was a kid. We call it "I cut, you choose".

After months of "enforced" sharing of desserts with a girlfriend who said she didn't want to order any, but then always changed her mind when it got to the table and started to eat mine off my plate, we instituted a "girlfriend tax." She was thereby entitled to 10% of anything I ordered, even if she had previously said she didn't want any.

Later, this became the fiancee tax (25%) and then the wife tax (whatever). We've hypothesized that there there could exist an ex-wife tax as well (50% of everything).

The wife tax has solved a lot of disagreements over who gets what at the dinner table (and dessert).

My partner and I are also of the make a good amount of food for dinner/lunch plus leftovers ilk, so its not an issue. We just take what we want from the food we make, depending on our preferences of the moment (hungriness, kind of food, etc.). Occasionally, when the food is super delicious, we might whine about who gets to eat the leftovers if there's not enough for 2. In the end its really not much of an issue - we eat what we want when we want.

But since I'm a meat and cheese eater and she's veggie and lactose-intolerant, some of our meals are specially-tailored for us as individuals anyway.

hah! since i do the cooking and the dishes I have no problem taking the last slice of something.

Tim M that is the cutest thing ever I am so stealing that.

Sharing means that.. Sharing.. I prefer to share off the same plate or the same ice cream tub or whatever.. and I don't bother keeping track of who gets what.. I have rarely gone hungry, nor do my friends...

We generally split the dish in half. I eat about half of my portion for dinner and save the rest for lunch the next day. He makes his own lunch.

We don't really have a method in place. I tend to plate most meals we eat together, often giving him more than I give myself (because he's bigger than me, so in theory he'd eat more, right?). What happens most of the time is that I finish my dish and he only eats about 2/3's of his. In the end, I'd say we eat about the same, but with some things... like dessert, I'm always willing to take a little bit more and he takes a little bit less.

Fine but there is NO fair way to share chocolate.

We have a system that works out just well for us! I don't eat as much as my boyfriend, but he always insists on me taking the larger portion. But when I don't finish my food and his is long gone, he happily accepts the last bites.

I usually keep everything on the table ,hubby takes whatever he wants to eat,..:)

When splitting a dessert on a single plate we have a certain etiquette. You both eat reasonable bites until it is down to a couple of bites. The whoever gets a bite takes half of what's there. You alternate taking half of what's there until it is ridiculous to cut it any more. Then it is ok to eat it all but only after asking/announcing your intentions.

I cut, you choose (and yeah, was guilty of licking a piece or two when doing this with my sisters when growing up). We also have some highly competitive games of Rock-Paper-Scissors. :)

Try doing it between 3 kids, that's what my mom had us do.

@whatyousay and @Miss Vicky -- Right with you guys (23 years of marriage here). It's a small way to show our love and consideration of the other.

Not that big a deal at our house as the hubs is a foot taller, weighs more, eats more. BUT, when there is a treat involved and he cuts and takes an obviously bigger piece, he'll smile and say most charmingly, "But, honey, I'm only thinking of your girlish figure."

the grilled cheese pictured in this post makes me want THE WHOLE THING. no sharing.

@ littlecat, my brother used to lick the portions he wanted too .... worse, he would spit into the beverages portions that he wanted since he could not lick those ... YUCKs!!

This seems like a great idea for kids, but for adults? I don't know, it just strikes me as a very immature attitude about sharing a meal.

I generally eat much smaller servings, and I'm happy with that.

However, somehow my husband grew up in a family that wolfs their food down like they are starving. He's always finished with his plate before I'm even halfway through mine. And then begins the "oh I'll just take a little forkful!" and before you know it, he's eaten half of what's left on my plate. This was especially annoying because I tend to save the tastiest bites for last!

I finally had to put my foot down and make a firm rule - what's on my plate is MINE. If he wants it, he can ask, and if I don't mind giving it up then *I'll* spoon it on to his plate and he can eat it from there. This gives him a more realistic measure of how big of a portion he's really adding to his meal as well.

Anyone who thinks adults should never get disgruntled at their SO has never watched their loved one just pluck the last tuna sashimi from their plate. :P

My situation seems to be a bit different. I love food, cooking, and eating. My husband does not share that enthusiasm. If I'm serving something that won't do well as a leftover, I only serve him what I could eat if he doesn't. Otherwise I just leave small portions in front of him until they finally disappear. I guess it works well that I both divide and serve food, as I'm the one who cares.

First we divide the food evenily.

Then we try to steal the other's food when we think we can get a fork in.

It all works out in the end, sometimes with a few extra fork holes in your hand though.

Oh, we do this for card games that require large piles (skip-bo, war).
Someone cuts the other person chooses their stack.
Food we manage to share well enough.

Haha, these are great.

We don't have a method in place...I almost always make too much food for two people. If I plate it, he gets more, and if we serve ourselves, he gets more. But he's bigger than I am, and I never leave the table hungry, so we don't think about it.

I almost always save room for dessert, though, and he never does. ;-)

Hah! Smarts are necessary when you have a bigger appetite and also eat slower than your spouse.
1! Snack in the kitchen while cooking
2! Give him the best food (Kudos!)
3! Share from your plate before he gets down to the last nibble. (Kudos!)
4! Have dessert and tea/coffee a few hours later. You've nailed it by that point.

I've never had this problem, because we rarely eat meals where there is little enough food that me getting an extra few bites matters at all. I eat until I am no longer hungry, which happens pretty fast, and anything extra (though I will certainly eat it if available,) isn't something I feel that attached to. Perhaps this comes from having once been a fatty and then deciding that sucked and reversing it, but to me the food is more about savoring the taste than trying to cram the maximum amount possible in my face, so if my boyfriend wants half an inch more of the pizza that is fine with me. At the end of the day, the difference between 4 slices of pizza and 2 slices of pizza (or just about anything else I eat) just winds up being that, with one, I afterwards feel gross about what I just ate.

That said, when he eats my candy and I'm feeling grumpy, I just scowl at him as hard as I can. It usually works, either he feels bad and stops or he laughs at the grumpy face and I feel a little better.