Portion Distortion

Now that we have learned so much about the Mediterranean diet, we are going to go back to some of the basics. Starting with portion sizes, do you know how your portion sizes compare to the recommended? 

If you answered no, don’t be worried, most Americans have no idea what an appropriate portion size looks like. In fact, a recent study found 85% of Americans think they eat healthier than they actually do! (https://consumer.healthday.com/health-and-nutrition-2657469878.html)  

Part of the reason why? Portion distortion: portion distortion is the increasing of portion sizes over the past few decades leaving people to think the “normal” portion size is much larger than it should be! (https://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/portion-distortion.html) 

In fact, did you know that in the 1950’s dinner plates were about the size of our salad plates today? But our dinner plates had to grow to keep up with our portion distortion. (Pro tip: use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate to help keep your portions in check AND stay full. If you put the proper serving size on a dinner plate it will look mostly empty and your brain will tell you are still hungry when you are done eating. But if you put appropriate portion sizes on a salad plate it will look full and your brain will tell you that you are full.) 

So what are the recommended serving sizes? Here are some examples:  

Vegetables 

• 2 cups raw, leafy vegetables (think spinach, lettuce, kale) 

• 1 cup cut-up vegetables (pretty much everything besides green, leafy) 

• 1 cup 100% vegetable juice 

Fruits 

• One medium whole fruit 

• 1 cup cut-up fruit (or blueberries, strawberries, etc) 

• 1 cup 100% fruit juice (watch for the ones with added sugar) 

• ½ cup dried fruit  

Grains 

• One slice of bread 

• One tortilla 

• 1 cup ready-to-eat cereal (cheerios, raisin bran, etc) 

• ½ cup cooked rice, pasta, cereal  

• 3 cups popped popcorn 

Dairy 

• 1 cup milk 

• 1 cup yogurt 

• 1 ounce cheese 

Protein 

• ¼ cup cooked beans, lentils or peas 

• ¼ cup tofu 

• 1 ounce nuts (golf ball) 

• 2 tbsp peanut butter (ping pong ball) 

• 3 oz meat (deck of cards) 

• 1 egg 

Fats and Oils 

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil 

• 1 tbsp margarine or butter 

• 2 tbsp salad dressing 

So here is a challenge, get out your measuring cups and measuring spoons and see what these portion sizes would look like for each of your meals for the next few days. Is this how much you normally eat? Much more or much less? Make sure to comment below! 

Once you have measured out your portions for a few days you can get a sense for how much you should be eating for each meal and can start to eye ball your portions moving forward.