Quick Reference Guide to Visualizing Serving Size

Quick Reference Guide to Visualizing Serving Size

Nutrition guidelines detail the things you should be eating,

Many will include suggestions to eat either a serving or a portion size,

but what is that exactly?

Are Digital Kitchen Food Scales required at all times in an effort to better manage your serving/portion sizes?

Having a scale handy in the kitchen is a great idea, not only for measuring portions, but scales come in handy for cooking in general. A pocket scale shouldn’t be needed to enjoy a meals in daily life, with the right visuals, and a little practice,  plating up the proper serving or portion sized meal should become quick. Most people I’ve talked with agree that relearning serving size generally takes a week of counting and/or measuring portions. (hint: many use online calorie counters at this time as well)

Visualizing portions using common household items is a quick and easy way to determine what to place on your plate.

Thinking along those lines consider: 

• a slice of bread is the size of a CD,
• one cup: a baseball or your fist
• one serving of fruit or veggies:  A woman’s fist
• 3 oz of meat: A dollar bill, a deck of cards, an iPod
• 2 Tablespoons peanut butter: A ping-pong ball
• 1 oz of Nuts: One golf ball
• 1 oz of pretzels/chips: Two golf balls

WebMD Printable Portion Size guide

WebMD Printable Wallet Size Guide

WebMD Wallet size portion guide

These are a few good ways to visually gauge portion or serving sizes,

there are many more so I included some nicely done websites to help you.

I found a few fun sites that you can look at as not every concept works for every person. Take a look at each of these sites to see what appeals to you and helps you to visualize what portion sizes should be. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you found most helpful.

1. 1. Web MD’s Portion Size Area has an easy to follow tabbed panel interactive slide show of various items in all the major food groups. This is a fun and easy to use site that has many food items available. WebMD also offers a pdf downloadable pocket-sized guide and a refrigerator pdf download to help assist you in learning these guidelines.

1. I really like this article titled: A Visual View of Serving Sizes using Everyday Items from Dietriffic. (the site is no longer live) They have listed common portion size description then compared that to items you might find around your home. This site also posts a handy explanation of the difference between Serving size and portion size:
   

   Here are some serving size examples…

   A rounded handful
   One 1/2 cup vegetables or fruit, 1/2 cup of cooked rice or pasta, or a snack serving of crisps or pretzels

   Woman’s fist
   Another way of visualizing a serving of vegetables, or one piece of whole fruit

   Small handful or golf ball
   1/4 cup of dried fruit

   A matchbox
   1 oz serving of meat, or a serving of cheese

   Deck of cards, or the palm of your hand (excluding fingers)
   3oz serving (recommended serving) of meat, fish or poultry, or ten chips/french fries

   Check book
   Serving of fish (approximately 3 oz)

   Tennis ball
   1/2 cup of pasta, or a serving of ice cream

   Computer mouse
   Medium baked potato

   Thumb tip or one dice
   One teaspoon of margarine

   A ping pong ball
   Two tablespoons of peanut butter

   Small milk carton
   8 fl oz glass of milk

   A baseball
   8 fl oz cup of yogurt, one cup of beans, or one cup of dry cereal

   A food serving helps you understand how much food is recommended from each of the food groups within the Balance of Good Health, or the Choosemyplate.gov. In some cases, a food serving may be close to what we actually eat, such as an apple. In other cases we may serve more than one food serving, for example rice or pasta.
   A portion is the amount of food we choose to eat. There are no portion sizes of food. Since it would be impossible for us to carry our weighing scales with us everyday to measure our food portion sizes, being able to estimate what a serving size looks like is really useful in making sure we aren’t overeating.

I hope you have found these sites helpful to you when you are plating up your meals and trying to visually gauge portions and servings. With the size of restaurant offerings increasing, in an effort to make their customer feel they are getting a better value for their dollar, the average consumer is overeating. When dining out you may notice the amount of food placed in front of you to be worthy of two if not three meals, ask for a take out container and save some time in the kitchen for your next meal. The belief that you have to eat everything on your plate is long gone and now we are in a time of managing your food resources for good health.

Please comment if you have found this information helpful and please add links to other websites that have helped as well..

Thank you..

Bon Apettit