Serving Sizes for Fruits and Veggies |
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- Generally a serving is one cup (8 ounces) of
chopped veggies.
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- ½ cup is often considered a serving, but use
common sense here. ½ cup of Cooked Spinach,
which shrinks a lot, is a serving but hard veggies
like carrots or green beans don't cook down as
much so count a serving of these as 1 cup.
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- Leafy Greens -- Lettuce, Spinach, etc.
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- These veggies take up a lot of volume but are
super low in calories! Eat up! Count 2
cups of these veggies as 1 serving.
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- Juices -- Veggie and Fruit
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- While a good source of nutrition, juices don't
fill you up. If you want to watch your
weight, too, count a serving of juice as ½ cup.
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- Treat dried fruit as a "sometimes food" --
delicious and sweet, they are caloric so use them
as a substitute for candy.
¼ to ½ cup is a
serving.
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- Usually, your closed fist is a good
approximation of a serving of whole fruit.
Take a look at that apple, if it's about the size
of your fist, count it as a serving. If it's
bigger, count it as more. Compare the size
of your fist to a measuring cup -- and make the
appropriate adjustments.
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- Grains, Starchy Vegetables
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- Some nutritionists count starchy vegetables
like potatoes, squashes, and peas as starches;
others count them as vegetable. Corn is
always a grain, not a vegetable. How you
count these is your choice -- generally a ½ cup of
cooked starchy vegetable is a serving.
These foods are nutritious but richer in calories
than other veggies.
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