Help with Portion Sizes

[pebblesus]

Hey,
I have read time and time again the protein content of 3 oz of chicken, turkey, salmon etc.. but how does that translate into the food that we make or order?
When chicken is chopped up, ham and urkey is sliced AND shredded at the deli and salmon is sliced in a sushi roll.. how can we compare it to "a deck of cards"? (what they say 3 oz looks like)
If anyone knows the contents of such foods or a website that has the contents on different portio sizes please let me know!!

 

[yukonlea]

Hello,

You do need to use your imagination a little to translate images like "a deck of cards" into a food that is a different shape than that.

One thing that can help is to look at a package of food like turkey slices or a can of salmon and see how many ounces are in the package. For example, a small can of tuna typically has 6 oz. of tuna (this includes some water or oil). So if you were to make a tuna sandwich, you could use half a small can for a sandwich to meet the 3 oz. recommendation.

For turkey slices, brands like Oscar Meyer or Louis Rich are usually 1 oz of meat to a slice. Look at the Nutrition Facts label on the package and you can figure out how many slices would make 3 oz.

When you buy a meat like hamburger, dividing a pound into 4 portions would give you 4 - 4 ounce servings. When they are cooked, they will each be about 3 ounces (the recommended serving size) because as they cook, some of water weight is cooked out of the meat.

There are some good nutrition info sites like these:
Calorie King (www.calorieking.com/foods)
National Institutes of Health (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/fd_exch.htm#5)

These sites give easy to use info for most foods, but meat is harder because it is served in so many shapes.

Hope this helps.

Lea

 

[cheval]

This doesn't help you much at restaurants and the like, but invest in a good kitchen digital scale for home.

I bought one for 30 bucks a few years ago and it's the best thing EVER for helping me keep my portions in check. I weigh almost everything. It sounds tedious, but it's not. For dinner, I put my plate on the scale and zero it out. Then I serve up the food one thing at a time, zeroing out the scales between each dish.

Like last night, I ate 6 oz of steamed broccoli, 3 oz of mashed potatoes and 1 oz of mushroom soup (for gravy). I also had 1 oz of dried fruit, 12 oz of nonfat milk and 1 oz of hershey's syrup (my splurge ). Sounds like a lot of food right now, but it was all only 450 calories and very little fat (just in the potatoes and soup). Took very little extra time to measure out my food. My husband got the balance of the veggies and mashed potatoes. I don't have to weigh his food.

Once you weigh your food out at home for awhile, you'll get to recognize how much of something you can have while out and still control your portions.

If you eat at chain restaurants, a lot of them have nutritional info on their web sites.

April