How to Calculate Serving Size

Getting your serving sizes right not only ensures that you consume adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, but it also prevents you from overeating and gaining weight---or wasting food. Many people presume that the amount of food they are served is the right amount for them, and this can be a dangerous assumption. Luckily, it's easy to calculate appropriate serving sizes.

Instructions

• 1

  Consult the food pyramid. This is a graph provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which shows how much of each food group we need to consume in one day. For example, the graph recommends that a 20-year-old female eat 6 ounces of grains, 2 1/2 cups of vegetables, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of milk and 5 1/2 ounces of meat or beans a day.

• 2

  Plan your meals to spread out the servings throughout the day. It is a good idea not to consume all of your servings of a particular food group at one meal, as this may leave you feeling hungry later.

• 3

  Read the labels on food packaging. All packaged foods are required to have labels that disclose what one serving is of that particular food. This may be stated as a measurement---for example, one serving is 20g. Or the packet may simply tell you how many servings it contains---for example, 100g packet contains 5 servings. Simply divide the total weight by the servings to get the weight of each serving, which in this case is 100 / 5 = 20g.