Portion Control: What's a proper serving look like?

Big cinnamon bun,

By now, most people know that they should be eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. But what does that actually look like? And what is a portion of protein? Is it different if it's animal or vegetable protein? How much should we eat at each meal?

Here's a website that clearly shows you what these items need to look like on your plate, and gives many examples of proper portion sizes. When we read labels at the grocery store, we see serving sizes but don't often know what those sizes would look like.

If you look around on WebMD's Portion Control Plate, you will see examples of typical serving sizes. Sure that cake looks none too evil according to the label, but that's only if you eat a piece of cake the size of a deck of cards. I usually take bites that are the size of a deck of cards. And especially look at the Grains section for a visual on what a typical serving of pasta looks like. It's a baseball, not a football. This means that when you have a large dinner plate of pasta, you are exceeding the recommended serving size by about 300%.

Companies have been making ever larger portions while only posting rather modest serving sizes on their labels. Look at this gigantic cinnamon bun above. I just had to snap a photo of it; it was ginormous! I am a tall woman with fairly large hands and this bun was about the size of my head. Whomever bought that bun likely did not eat it in several modest portions. It would be eaten at one sitting, just like all those enormous muffins folks buy at Starbucks, McDonald's and everywhere else nowadays.

This means that even if we're reading labels, we are probably getting fatter by consuming far more calories than we think we are. It pays to eat a moderate amount of food: better for your digestion, better for your fat cells, and better on your pocketbook. Unless you're an athlete, you don't need enormous amounts of food at one sitting. And if you're reading this blog, it's pretty likely that you know where your next meal is coming from, so it's very unnecessary to stuff oneself at each meal. Make sure that you read your labels and understand how much food they refer to, before putting it on your plate.