How To Properly Lick Your Plate

If you take life far too seriously and don't have a sense of humor, please do not read this.

If the food was that delicious, do you need a reason? Probably not, but with tongue firmly in cheek... er...let me help you out here. Times are tough and food is expensive. Do you realize how many nutrients you are leaving stuck to your plate? By licking your plate you are fighting world hunger. It takes less dish soap and water to clean a well licked plate. You are therefore helping to conserve resources and save our environment. Be that hero and start licking your plate after all your meals.

As in everything though, there is a right way and a wrong way. Read on and you will be not only a hero, but an expert in the art of plate licking.

There are three major pits falls that will mark you as a rank amateur, but they are easy enough to avoid.

For starters, pick that plate up with your hands. You'll have far better control. It's best to use both hands, but there are circumstances, when you have no choice. Most important is that picking up the plate looks better. Leaving your plate on the table and planting your face in it, might lead to some unfortunate results. You might find you next meal, served on the floor, next to the dog's dish.

Pitfall number two is really just for people with long hair. Notice the model in the above picture restraining her hair so that only her tongue is involved with cleaning that plate. Good job! Food and hair are not a good combination. Having to wash your hair afterward would cancel out any environmental gains you might have won.

Last point has more to do with technique than anything else. If you pick up your plate as recommended and then drag your tongue, from the bottom, through the middle, all the way to the top, you will end up with food either on your nose or your chin. To avoid that faux pas, start licking around the edges and work your way to the middle. Done correctly, not only will your plate end up clean, but your face will stay that way. Our model in the first picture has the hang of it.

If everyone began licking their plate after meals, imagine the impact that would have on the world we live in. More food, cleaner water... It would be a better place. Put those tongues to work. They aren't just for talking you know. Why do you think they're covered with taste buds?