Baffled By Serving Sizes?

What I really hate is for items like a muffin or cookie, they give you the calories for only HALF the muffin. How many people are going to cut it in half and wrap up the rest?!

"This requires a certain level of mathematical skill to get any idea of how much you are actually eating."

Which you should have certainly gained by the 4th grade. Are we saying that we in this country can't multiply and divide?

"How many people are going to cut it in half and wrap up the rest?!"

I, for one, did that even as a kid.

"How many people are going to cut it in half and wrap up the rest?!"

Or, How come they don't make NORMAL serving sizes? Recommended ones? If you're going to tell me, by the info on the label, that a serving is ________ then sell me exactly that.

This goes the way of super sizing. They sell you the large portion because you'll buy it and eat it if it looks "satisfying" at a glance. The hungrier you are, the more food (in terms of mass and size) you think you need to consume. The manufacturers are hoping you DON'T read the label. It's only there because the law says it has to be. IMO, the law isn't strict enough.

>>>Are we saying that we in this country can't multiply and divide?

Sadly most adults can't =(

The Food Navigator article (http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=70843-american-journal-of-preventive-medicine-nutrition-labels-health-claims) reported that 63% of those participating in the survey had less than 9th grade math skills (while 68% had some college) - that speaks volumes about how bad it is in this country for math literacy.

How do they come up with a serving size? Do they just make it up?

With some low carb foods were realy high carb foods they just lowered the serving size.

I saw a muffin in the store it was medium/average muffin not even bakery size. A serving size was half making it extremely high calorie muffin.

"How do they come up with a serving size? Do they just make it up?"

It's completely arbitrary. The serving size is only there to provide a unit by which you can multiply. When I look at nutrition labels, I go online (if applicable) and find the biggest serving size I can. This increases numerical precision, as they often work in multiples of 5 or 10. Once you have that, you can use cross-multiplication to either find how much you should eat to get x calories, or how many calories you will get from y amount of food. Either way, it's only two ops: one multiplication and one division.

You should try living in Canada. Much of the nutritional info I read online use US measurement standards - ounces, grams, cups etc... It is mesmerizing.
One tool I often use is: http://www.onlineconversion.com/

It's hard to feel sorry for someone who ate 1,360 calories of spaghetti thinking it was 170 calories. I could understand if it was two servings, and she ate 340 calories, thinking it was 170 calories. Darwinism at work?

I used to count calories...and I recently started again.

Question -- My box of penne pasta says that a serving is 3/4 cup. Is that dry or cooked? Also, if the serving size refers to cooked pasta, how much should I measure out to cook since it expands?!?!?

Whit - from a cooks view about pasta measurements is dry, taking from typical spaghetti measures of how much one can hold between thumb and index finger closed to base of thumb, knuckle of thumb and tip of thumb...or using one of those plastic/metal spaghetti measures where you push the dry through to measure. Similar to the finger/thumb principal.

However, who knows what tricks the food industry is up to? I mean, showing a serving size of 8 oz. on a 12 oz can?? This is calculated trickery. They KNOW most people will read it too fast or not at all.

I have always wondered about meat-Is serving size calculated before it is cooked or after? In some cases it gives both raw and cooked but if that isn't stated then do you measure raw or cooked?

I'll admit, it's really not that hard to calculate. All in all, the serving size the give - most of the time - is what we really should be eating.

Instead, in this supersized world, we eat way more and people can't estimate portion sized or calculate nutrition info.

For thing like pasta or soup - 2-3 serving is appropriate for dinner. That's why when I see a soup bowl has 2 servings, at 110 calories each serving, it's an adequate dinner with a salad, fruit, and some bread. It's not rocket science...but I do understand the frustration for those...who aren't familiar with nutrition info. To them I say...REAAAD. AND WAKE UP!!

I can understand that reading labels can become very confusing with serving sizes as they can vary from product to product. I believe it is easier just to stick to eating cleanier and exercises more.

I think they count on us to be lazy about how we read the label or perhaps they count on us to disregard or make our own assumptions about the serving size and just look at the calories.
There's plenty of deception in food labeling, not the least of which is marketing foods with numerous hits of MSG by using food ingredients that contain MSG. You even have to label read in health food stores to screen out the MSG laced ingredients. In relation to the North American obesity problem , did you know they use MSG to fatten lab rats for experiments? You eat unregulated qualitities of it every day whether you known it or not. Figure it out from there. http://www.truthinlabeling.org/

Maybe they should include both numbers: per serving and total serving.

Come on. Is it really hard to look down at total servings for the container (package, etc) of whatever? So they aren't designed the best way, and that's to our disadvantage if we don't want to read the label, but why not just know that they do this, be smart, and read the label? I've been doing it for years.
Obviously 170 calories of pasta is not the whole box! Read carefully, people!

Again, this is another instance of people not wanting to take any responsibility for anything. Come on, if you were at the store and buying fruit that said "$1.50/lb" and you thought that meant the whole bag you filled cost $1.50, the grocery store probably wouldn't have a lot of sympathy for you. Or you take your family to a movie where admission is $7.00. Do you pay the usher $7.00 and assume your whole family gets to see it for that price? I honestly think most people aren't THAT dumb that they can't figure out a little simple math on a food label. The problem is, they either don't care or they are in denial about how much they really are eating.

The reason serving sizes are so small on nutritional labels is a marketing scheme. They don't really want you to do the math and see how many calories you really ARE eating if you eat the whole thing. If your saw that a bag of chips was 600 calories you definately put it down. But at 150 calories it doesn't look as scary. They generally try and make it under 150 calories per serving to make it more appealing.

I saw a really great story in FITNESS magazine about portion control and I think it was the October issue. This magazine seems to be taking health and nutrition seriouisly. They also have a great story on SCALes;;;what not to believe when you step on the scale. It was really really interesting! I

The Food Guide Pyramid has been used as a tool for guiding Americans in healthy eating habits, but most Americans do not eat the recommended serving sizes for many foods. This may be a contributing factor in the rising rates of obesity in this country.

Perhaps that the food companies may need to shrink it down so that they really are a one-serving fits all.

But even though it trully is a 1 serving thing, I still need to take a look at the contents, and say this:

If it contains any artificial trans fats (Anything on the ingredients list listed as (Hydrogenated anythong oil) on it, I put it back on the shelf. Same thing goes for artificial sweeteners. I found that Entermins Cakes are trans free and uses palm oil instead of partialy hydrogenated soybeam oil. However, although saturated fats do clog up arteries in excessive ammounts, you need "some" for vitamins A and D absorption.

If I am cooking, I use the healthy monounsaturated oils like macadamia nut oil or olive oil, instead of these unhealthy polyunsaturated oils like corn, cottenseed, canola, and soybeam oil.

For desert at restaurants, I perfer ice cream over cake or brownies, as cakes and brownies are trans-laden. Thankfully, New York is issuing a ban on trans fats. I know that restaurants hate the idea of eliminating trans fats, but tough for them. Trans fats arn't going in my diet. If I am having Pizza for dinner or pancakes for breakfast, I look for whole grain ones that are trans free.

Oh, and by the way, Wendy's french fries are still unhealthy, because although they finally eliminated hydrogenated oils from their menus, they are still cooking it in the wrong liquid fats. Instead of corn and soybean oil, they should switch to olive or grapeseed oils.

But I agree that I would rather have a tasty meal than an oversized meal that makes me fat, all in the middle of me trying to maintain my weight in an oversized world.

And a serving of pasta is still a ton of carb at once... it is 100g pasta, what those little measurers consider 1 serving. That is around 70 grams of carb. Unless you're trying to gain weight or training for a marathon, you don't need 70g of carb in one sitting.