What is a Portion?
Last week I talked a little bit about portion control, and in order to understand portions we need to dig deeper than the label. Enter my favorite snack…potato chips!! As I glance to the back of the bag to read the label, I see serving size: 1 ounce, 32 servings per container. Great, I either need to dump out the bag or get a scale. A brief trip to the neighbors house to get a scale and I’m back in business. So as I’m filling up the scale I quickly notice that my normal, eat the chips from the bag, routine will need to stop. Now that the scale is overflowing with a 1 ounce portion of chips, I can take some photos…okay it’s not really overflowing, and there is a scared look on my face when I see how few chips the label thinks is a serving. This is a 1 ounce portion of chips, and is approximately 150 calories with 80 of those calories coming from fat. Not horrible, but considering I would eat at least 3 of these so called servings things need to change!
So there you go! Grab a snack, and arm yourself with the knowledge to make better choices.
As always feel free to leave a comment or emil me at zakschwank [at] gmail dot com if you have any questions or want me to hear your thoughts. I am also actively looking for guest bloggers to tell your story. If you or anyone you know is interested please send them my way. I would really like to make this a place where we can all share and learn.
Thanks Zak!
THAT’S a serving of chips?????
Zak, help.
So I’ve been checking up on portion sizes for the stuff my family and I eat…most are surprising, and I think it’s a excellent idea to actually weigh/measure things…it’s been eye opening. The worst (best) has been my favorite snack, ice cream…a serving size is 1/2 cup! I measured it out, smashing it in there to get the most bang out of my buck, hahaha…Here’s the pic: http://www.twitpic.com/13s90y Needless to say, that’s smaller than my usual dish of ice cream.
It does take a bit longer, but I do think it’s worth it. Wow look at the size of that ice cream serving!!! Thanks for posting that. Let me know how things go for you and your family!