Know your portion size

'You are what you eat' some say, and to eat healthy you need to eat the right amount. Often you may have come across the word 'portion' in articles related to healthy eating, e.g. one portion of veggies and two portions of fruits, etc. But like many you wonder what is the difference between servings and portions and how best can it be used it in your diet?

Clinical nutritionist and director, Whole Foods, Delhi, Ishi Khosla clarifies the concept of 'portion' and incorporating it in your diet.

Expert speak: There's no concept of good or bad food in nutrition science. What matters is the amount of food you consume, something that can be measured in terms of portion or size of serving.

Incidentally, portion sizes have undergone a considerable change over the years and continue to do so even today. The trend, in general, has been towards consuming larger and larger food portions (the expanding waistlines are proof of this!). The human mind seems to count the number of portions rather than the portion size. For example, when people say they have only one chapatti for lunch/dinner, they rarely ever discuss its size.

Short-term studies have also shown that people eat more when confronted with larger portion sizes. A study by Diliberti et al in a restaurant setting showed that when a pasta entrée was served in different portion sizes on different days, people ate larger amounts on being served larger portions, regardless of the taste! Also, studies show that people do not adjust or eat less in subsequent meals, if they have already had larger portions.

Technically, a 'portion' means the amount of food you choose to eat at one time-at a restaurant, from a package or at home. A 'serving' size indicates the calories and nutrients in a certain serving listed under a product's 'Nutrition Facts' or a single unit or a commonly regarded unit of food.

The serving size is not the recommended amount of food to be eaten. Sometimes, the portion size and serving size match; sometimes, they don't. For example, one slice of bread=one serving of bread. But the number of slices you eat would be the number of portions you have eaten. So, if you have two slices, you would have consumed two portions. So, how do we recognise what's the right amount of food to eat on a regular basis? Learn to recognise standard serving sizes as they help you judge how much you are eating. It may also help to compare serving sizes to common objects. For example, 100 g of meat or poultry is about the size of a deck of cards or the palm of your hand.

Source:Yahoo news.