The present invention relates to plates for eating. It comprises both flat plates and soup plates.

At normal eating it can often be difficult to eat up the sauce or gravy with fork and knife, especially for children and elder people. If you eat with only fork it becomes even more difficult. Many people tend to mix the sauce with some foodstuff that absorbs the sauce, such as rice and in particular mashed potatoes, and to less extent spaghetti. Many people also have the habit of soaking the remaining gravy with a piece of bread. Further, many people lift one end of the plate by hand to incline the plate, so that the gravy flows down by gravity to the other end where it can be more easily collected by for instance a piece of bread or a spoon. Another possibility is to push the absorbing foodstuff, for instance rice, to the lower end of the inclined plate and then collect the gravy there with a fork or spoon. However, then one hand is occupied by holding the higher end of the plate. Especially handicapped people with for instance only one hand have difficulties in eating up the remaining gravy, of which they may be particularly fond of. Moreover, it is difficult for handicapped people to eat up the last spoonfuls of soup.

The present invention solves these problems by providing a tiltable or inclinable plate. A preferred embodiment is shown in the accompanying drawings, which are herewith shortly presented:

Figure 1 shows the bottom side of a plate according to the present invention.

Figure 2 shows an enlargement of the cross-section A-A in Figure 1.

Figure 3 shows an embodiment where the turnable flap is a separate unit. As generally known, the plate 1 stands on the rounded support surface 2 on a table. Normally, it stands on a periphery rim 3, which usually protrudes somewhat from the bottom surface 2. According to the present invention, the surface 2 is provided with a shallow depression 4, and that depression is provided a tab or flap 5 which is pivotable around an axis or pin 6, which suitably goes through a hole in the flap and into two blind holes on opposite sides of the depression 4. This pin can be either fastened by providing two open accomodations for its ends along two opposite sides of the depression, whereafter these accomodations are then filled with some filling mass, such as putty or glue, thereby fixing the pin with the flap, or the pin is a wrist band spring pin as used for fastening the leather band of a wrist watch.

When a person wants to incline his plate, he simply lifts the end of the plate with the flap slightly and makes sure the tap is folded out. One preferred way to achieve this, is to let the flap fall out by itself by gravity, thereby designing the flap and the depression in such a way that the flap rotates somewhat more than 90° around the pin, thereby attaining a locked position when resting on the table, with a considerable part of the plate' s weight resting on it. The flap can be folded in by pushing the plate somewhat horizontally forwards, whereby the flap is turned back by the frictional contact with the table. If that is not possible, one can of course also fold it back by using a finger. The depression 4 should be sufficiently large to allow manipulation of the flap 5 by a finger.

The flap can also be held back in the depression by a biased pin or spring, so that one needs to exert some force to fold the flap out, for instance with your fingers. It can also be held by a snapping arrangement, so that you for instance have to overcome to certain resistance to pass a protrusion on a side of the depression.

The position of the flap plate can be indicated by some marking on the visible top side of the plate.

The foldable flap can be made of porcelain just like the plate, but preferably it is made of some plastic material .

The foldable flap and its holder can also be made as a separate unit 9, which can be glued on the bottom side of the plate, or even on the inclined under-side 7 of the plate's flange. Thus, in accordance with Figure 3, the flap unit according to the invention consists of a frame 8, a falp 5 and an axis or pin 6. One of the two flat sides of the frame 8 can be provided with an adhesive. This unit 9 can be pressed into a depression 4, but if the rim 3 is sufficiently high and the unit 9 is sufficiently flat, there free height may be sufficiently large to fix it on the bottom surface 2 without any depression. And again, it may also be fastened on the inclined flange 7, near the rim 3. Also according to this embodiment, the flap and the frame are preferably made of plastic. The frame 8 may be somewhat elastic so that the ends of the axis 6, which in this case may be two small concentric protrusions on either side of the flap 5, can be snapped into two corresponding holes in the frame 8.