Skip to main content

Nutrition Tips: Serving Sizes


You’re at work.  It’s been a long morning, and you’re starting to get hungry.  You decide to pull out that bag of almonds from your desk drawer.  You dump a few on a napkin.  And you dump a few more.  You check the label - a serving is 2 Tbsp.  That looks about right, you decide.  You fold the bag back up and stash it away for another day. But here’s a question.  Why is a serving size of almonds 2 Tbsp?  Is that all you need of nuts for the day?  Is it a perfect portion for YOU?  

These “serving sizes” were actually determined back in the 1980’s - 1990’s after a group of researchers with the USDA surveyed Americans regarding how much they would eat of a certain food “per eating occasion.”  The average of the collected data became the serving size when nutrition labels became standardized in 1994.  So, basically, that ½ cup serving of Life cereal you had this morning was dictated by the rest of America.  Not science.  

Pretty interesting, huh?  I tell my patients to use the information on the label as a reference not a prescription.  For example, my 6’5” male athlete patient doesn’t need to stop at one serving of soup for lunch - he’s trying to get in a minimum of 3,000 calories every day as part of his training.  But, thanks to our label, we know that each serving provides him with 225 calories and we can build from there.  

One other thing to keep in mind - the food industry uses these labels for themselves, not for you.  These sizes give manufacturers a tool to inform us how much fat, calories, protein, etc. are in a given portion.  This does not mean anything in terms of meeting nutritional needs.  For example, a serving size of a bag of pretzels may be 10.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that if you stick with 10, you’ve done something amazing for your body.  On the flip side, if you have an 8 oz. glass of orange juice in the morning, you haven’t met your quota for fruit for the day.  
 
When you’re struggling to find what servings YOU need, it’s best to work with a registered dietitian who can assess your needs based on certain criteria as well as working with your real life schedule.  By working together, you can best decide how many servings (or half servings) of any given food you need for YOUR optimal health and weight.  Guessing can lead to unintentional weight gain/loss, nutrient deficiencies, or unnecessarily avoiding certain foods.  

In Good Health,

Dawn



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Make it Happen

Parents, I see you. I see you putting everyone else's needs in front of yours. I see your dark circles under your eyes, your gray hair, that your wasting away, or that you've collectively gained weight over the years. It's time to put yourselves first because if you don't take care of yourself you won't be around to keep taking care of everyone else. So often friends, acquaintances, or clients say to me, "I don't know how you find the time to exercise." "How can you take the time away from everything else and get away to exercise?" "I wish I could actually focus on myself and exercise." Exercise to me is self care. It produces endorphins faster than any other activity I engage in. It  reduces my stress, keeps me healthy, increases flexibility, and gives me more energy to be on point with my busy kids and my demanding job. My exercise isn't extravagant and it doesn't take too much time. Here's my secret. I always

Why this Dietitian Cares more about your PREbiotics than your PRObiotic Pill

Clients ask me all the time what I think of their brand of probiotic or which one they should start taking.  Studies have shown that probiotic supplements definitely have their place in certain circumstances (that’s a whole other blog for another time), but my bigger concern is... what are you feeding the ones you have already? “Probiotics” is just a fancy word for helpful bacteria.  Even if you don’t take a pill, you have these little guys in your digestive track.  The problem right now is that current probiotic supplements can only include the bacteria that scientists have been able to 1) identify and 2) put in a pill without them dying right away.   However, we (probiotic and non-probiotic users alike) have so many different strains of bacteria (somewhere in the neighborhood of billions) who do so much good for us such as make vitamins and help battle bad bacteria.  BUT - just like us - they need to eat!  A recent study showed that a diet high in protein is not in their

To The Bones- A review from a dietitian

Friday July 14th, Netflix premiered the movie To The Bone.  Prior to the premier many had opinions of the movie. Some were fearful that it would glorify an Eating Disorder, some felt the movie would put too much focus on extremely thin patients with Eating Disorders neglecting those that are within normal weight but still extremely sick, and many had a lot of opinions about the lead actress who lost a significant amount of weight for the role disclosing she is in recovery for an Eating Disorder. My colleagues and I discussed the pretense of the movie, I communicated to families that the movie was coming out in case their daughters and sons watched the movie, and Friday I went home from work and viewed the movie. Although Hollywood has a way of sensationalizing everything there was a lot that the movie got right. The opening scene where Ellen counts the calories as soon as she sees the food is a good depiction of how someone with an Eating Disorder thinks. Food is not sensual it i