Comparing portions, serving sizes and serves
Comparing portions, serving sizes and serves
By Dale Cooke Accredited Practising Dietitian
Most people treat a whole apple as one serve, but if it was a processed and packaged food, the manufacturer might choose to call it one-and-a-half serves. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But packaging serving sizes aren’t always logical.
What is the difference between a portion, a serving size and a serve?
Portion
A portion of food is often considered how much we put on our plate, so different people will have differing habitual portion sizes and amounts. For example, my parents were big eaters and they would serve portions that were much larger than my husband’s parents. When we first met, I felt hungry when I left their house after eating dinner!
If you have a goal to reduce your weight, your health professionals will often suggest reducing your food intake by eating smaller portions. This doesn’t mean you cut out any of your normal foods, but just reduce the amount of everything you eat and drink. Some people achieve this by using a bread and butter plate instead of a dinner plate for a main meal. Others use a “portion plate” which you can buy from the online Diabetes Shop https://diabetesshop.com/collections/nutrition-aids or you can just divide your plate up into half for leafy greens and vegetables, a quarter for your lean protein food and a quarter for you starchy vegetable or grain food. If you are having a mixed meal, like a one pot casserole, you would just make the ingredients up in similar proportions: 50% of the ingredients being leafy greens and vegetables, 25% protein food and 25% starchy vegetables or grains.
Portions can also relate to carbohydrate portions or CPs. CPs are a way of counting carbohydrate for people with type 1 diabetes, and is taught in the OzDAFNE (Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating) program. One CP equals 10g of carbohydrate. This contrasts to the 15g carbohydrate exchanges often used in diabetes management.
Serving size
The serving size of any packaged food is determined by the food manufacturer and it does not necessarily have any underpinning logic. So, if you are looking at the nutrition information panel on a packaged food think about how much you would choose to eat and contrast it to what the manufacturer thinks is a serve.
Serve
Health professionals, like dietitians, often use the term ‘serve’. For example, “have two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables every day”. These serve sizes are based on recommendations from the Australian Dietary Guidelines, where modelling of food groups led to serve sizes for individual foods within a group determined on the basis of energy (think kilojoules or calories) density and the nutrient density of key nutrients for that food group. The food groups are what we call “everyday” foods – foods which fill you up and provide nourishment for your body.
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So, a serve of: |
Is equal to: |
And provides about: |
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Vegetables |
75g or ½ cup cooked orange or green vegies or 1 cup salad vegies or 1 medium tomato or ½ cup sweet corn or ½ medium potato or other starchy vegetable
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100-350kJ |
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Fruit |
150g or 1 medium sized fruit e.g. apple or 2 small fruit e.g. apricots or 1 cup of fruit salad or (sometimes) ½ cup (125mL) fruit juice or 30g dried fruit e.g. 4 dried apricot halves or 1 ½ tablespoons of sultanas
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350kJ |
|
Grains and cereals |
1 average (40g) slice of bread or ½ cup cooked rice or pasta or porridge or noodles or quinoa or 2/3 cup (30g) wheat flakes or ¼ cup (30g) muesli or 3 (35g) crispbreads or 1 (60g) crumpet or 1 small (35g) English muffin or scone
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500kJ |
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Meat/protein |
65g lean cooked red meat or 80g lean cooked poultry or 100g cooked fish or 2 (120g) large eggs or 1 cup cooked legumes or 170g tofu or 30g nuts or seeds
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500-600kJ |
|
Dairy/alternatives |
1 cup (250mL) cow or calcium fortified plant reduced fat milk, 2 slices (40g) hard cheese, ½ cup (120g) ricotta cheese or ¾ cup (200g) yoghurt or 60g sardines in water or ½ cup (100g) pink salmon with bones or 100g firm tofu (set with calcium) or for the equivalent calcium, but not energy, 100g almonds with skins (3000kJ)
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500-600kJ 300g calcium |
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Unsaturated fats, oils and spreads |
10g poly- or mono-unsaturated margarine spread or 7g mono- or poly-unsaturated oil e.g. olive, canola or sunflower oil or 10g tree nuts or peanuts or paste
|
250kJ |
The minimum number of serves of foods recommended for individuals varies based on your age and gender but you can find your recommended numbers of serves below.
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Vegetables - Serves per day |
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19-50 years |
51-70 years |
70+years |
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Men |
6 |
5 ½ |
5 |
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Women |
5 |
5 |
5 |
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Fruit - Serves per day |
||
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|
19-50 years |
51-70 years |
70+years |
|
Men |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Women |
2 |
2 |
2 |
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Grain foods - Serves per day |
||
|
|
19-50 years |
51-70 years |
70+years |
|
Men |
6 |
6 |
4 ½ |
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Women |
6 |
4 |
3 |
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Lean meat/protein foods - Serves per day |
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|
19-50 years |
51-70 years |
70+years |
|
Men |
3 |
2 ½ |
2 ½ |
|
Women |
2 ½ |
2 |
2 |
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Dairy/alternatives - Serves per day |
||
|
|
19-50 years |
51-70 years |
70+years |
|
Men |
2 ½ |
2 ½ |
3 ½ |
|
Women |
2 ½ |
4 |
4 |
There is no recommended serve number for unsaturated fats and oils, as they are assumed to be used sparingly in your everyday food preparation.
For serve number recommendations for pregnant or breastfeeding women or children see here: https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/ or speak to your health care team.
If you are very active or trying to gain weight, you will need to eat more serves of these everyday foods.
If you are trying to lose weight, eating less of the processed and packaged “sometimes” foods (think cakes, biscuits, chocolates, lollies, soft drinks, cordials, sports drinks, processed meats, take away foods, “junk” foods, crisps, chips, butter, cream) while still eating the recommended serves of everyday foods is recommended. Talk to your dietitian for specific advice for you.
Happy eating. 😊