Servings? Huh?
February 16, 2008 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
My entire life when I’ve heard “5 servings of fruits and veggies every day,” I have always thought 5 servings of fruits and/or veggies in any combination.
No problem.
But, when I was taking the Real Age test I started noticing the grammar read more like 5 servings of fruits and 5 servings of vegetables every day.
Could I have been doing it wrong the whole time?
And what exactly is a serving? See that salad up there? How many servings of vegetables are in it?
- 6 large cherry tomatoes
- 1/4 avocado
- 2 small cucumbers
- 2 handfuls of different lettuce
- 3 baby carrots
Does that salad count as my 5 servings I should have in one day?
I dunno, does it? I feel like I do not get enough fruits and veggies. My trainer said to try to get most of my carbs from fruits and veggies. It’s a hard adjustment.
I wish someone who knows would tell me. I just don’t know.
I researched this a while back cause I had the same question, and I found the USDA recommends 3-5 servings veggies, 2-4 servings fruit. So if you do the minimum that is 5 total, if you do the maximum it is more like 9.
It also turned out I eat a lot more than I realized since serving sizes are actually pretty small. (When’s the last time you ate only 1/2 c. cooked vegetables? I eat more like two cups of cooked broccoli or three cups salad.)
Serving size is:
VEG
1 cup of raw leafy vegetables
1/2 cup of other vegetables, cooked or raw
3/4 cup of vegetable juice
FRUIT
One medium fruit
1/2 cup of chopped, cooked or canned fruit
3/4 cup of fruit juice
thank you violet – I’m pretty sure I’m doing that.