Better understanding of nutritional content from reading food labels, serving sizes
How many times have you parked yourself on the couch with a good book or in front of the television, a bag of chips or a box of crackers, and a drink to mindlessly munch while you read or watch the night away? Just how many serving sizes are you about to consume?
An eight ounce bag of potato chips has eight servings in it, each serving size being one ounce. By reading the nutritional content provided for you on the bag of the bag you will see that the average serving of plain potato chips has about 150 calories and ten grams of fat. Mindlessly eat half the bag while watching TV and you've just consumed 600 calories and 40 grams of fat. That's a third of the average woman's 1800 calories needed per a day and almost all of the recommended 45 grams of fat a day. That's not adding in the usually calorie filled beverage of choice you are drinking along with it.
Read the nutritional information on the food label of a bottle of cola. An eight ounce serving of the average regular carbonated beverage has about 100 calories in an eight ounce serving. Unless you measure that much into a measuring cup you are guaranteed to drink more. Who only drinks half of the 16 ounce bottle from the vending machine? That's 200 empty calories. You are better of drinking a diet or low calorie beverage, or even better water.
In comes the 100 calorie servings of prepackaged snack foods, sure they cost significantly more per serving size, but they give you the convenience of not having to measure and do the math.
You can also divide up a big bag of pretzels into single serving snack size plastic bags, or even mix things up and make combo snacks, half pretzels half crackers, or half pretzels half raisins. Just make sure to read the food labels and divide things up accordingly. An ounce of raisins, about 60, has 84 calories, add half a serving of little twist pretzels at 55 calories and you have 140 calories, a little more than a 100 calorie package, but you also get fiber from the raisins.
Read food labels for nutrition information to make sure you are eating the right serving size and pre-portion large packages of food to prevent binging.
Filed under: General
Tags: nutritional content, nutritional information, reading food labels
