How much do you eat?
Pyramid recommendations
How can you follow Pyramid recommendations?

Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
United States Department of Agriculture

Putting the Guidelines into Practice
March 2002

"Make that mega-sized."

"I'll have the gigantic-gulp."

"I don't believe I ate the whole thing!"

Many people feel that the bigger the portion, the better. But is that so? Not if you're trying to manage your weight. One key to getting or keeping your weight in a healthy range is to eat sensible portions. That's easy to say-but not always so easy to do! This brochure gives tips to help you decide what sensible portions are for you, and to help you stick to those reasonable portion sizes.

How much do you eat?

Suppose you had dinner at an Italian restaurant last night. You ordered spaghetti with meatballs. While you were waiting for your order, you ate 2 slices of garlic bread. How can you tell if this dinner is too much food for you? You need to estimate how much you ate, and then compare that to Food Guide Pyramid recommendations.

Think about your plateful of spaghetti and meatballs. Estimate the amounts of spaghetti, sauce, and meat. You may decide, for example, that the spaghetti portion was about 2 cups, the tomato sauce looked like about 1 cup, and the meatballs were about 6 ounces. With the 2 slices of garlic bread, you now have an idea about how much you ate for dinner. But how do your portions translate into standard servings? Chart 1 lists the serving sizes for each Food Guide Pyramid food group. According to the Pyramid, your portions equal the following number of servings:

Spaghetti Dinner:

Food	Your portion	One Pyramid serving	Pyramid Food Group	Number of Pyramid Servings you ate
Spaghetti	2 cups	½ cup	Grains	4
Garlic bread	2 slices	1 slice	Grains	2
Tomato Sauce	1 cup	½ cup	Vegetables	2
Meatballs	6 oz.	2-3 oz.	Meat and beans	2-3

Pyramid recommendations

To figure out if your spaghetti dinner was the right amount of food for you, use the Pyramid. Chart 1 also lists the number of servings recommended for each Pyramid food group, based on your calorie needs. Over a day, you should plan on eating the number of servings recommended from each group.

The number of servings from each food group recommended by the Pyramid depends on your calorie needs. Children ages 2 to 6 years, many inactive women, and some older adults may need about 1,600 calories per day. Most children over 6, teen girls, active women, and many inactive men may need about 2,200 calories per day. Teen boys and active men may need about 2,800 calories per day.

For example, if you need about 1,600 calories a day, the Pyramid recommends 6 daily servings from the Grains (Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta) group. How does this compare to your spaghetti dinner? Your dinner had 6 servings the total daily recommendation for someone with your calorie needs. If you had counted your portions of spaghetti and bread as only 1 serving each, you might think you had only eaten 2 servings from the Grains group. But, you actually ate 6! By comparing the portion you ate with a standard Pyramid serving, you can judge whether your daily intake is right for you.

Pyramid serving sizes and the recommended number of servings from each group are guides to help determine your daily intake. Your portions do not have to match the standard serving size-they can be larger or smaller. But, the amount you eat over the day should match the total amount of a food that is recommended. Often, the food portions of grains and meats that people choose are larger than the Pyramid serving size. Be especially careful when counting servings from these groups to figure out how many Pyramid servings are in your portions.

Food Guide Pyramid

A Guide to Daily Food Choices

Portions and servings - What's the difference? A portion is the amount of food you choose to eat. There is no standard portion size and no single right or wrong portion size. A serving is a standard amount used to help give advice about how much to eat, or to identify how many calories and nutrients are in a food. For example: You eat a sandwich with 2 slices of bread. The Food Guide Pyramid serving size for bread is 1 slice. Your portion is 2 slices, which equals 2 servings from the Pyramid Grains group. Your 2 servings are one-third of the Pyramid recommendation of 6 servings for people needing 1,600 calories per day. (See Chart 1.)

How can you follow Pyramid recommendations?

Let's go back to the spaghetti dinner. In this example, you know that you should have 6 daily servings from the Grains group. Before dinner, you estimate that you have already had 3 Grains group servings. So, only 3 more servings would meet your recommended intake. To keep to 3 servings, you eat only one slice of garlic bread. When you see the large plate of spaghetti, you set aside half on your plate and ask for a "doggie bag" to take it home. Then, the following would have been your choices from the Grains group over the day:

Meal	Grains Group portions		3 Pyramid Grains Group servings
Breakfast	½ cup of oatmeal	=	1 serving
Lunch	1 hamburger bun	=	2 servings
Dinner	1 slice of garlic bread	=	1 serving
Dinner	1 cup of spaghetti	=	2 servings
TOTALS	4 portions	=	6 servings

In 4 sensible portions, you have consumed your recommended 6 servings of grains. Note that an active man may need about 2,800 calories each day. Checking chart 1, this man's Grains group recommendation would be 11 servings per day. The full spaghetti dinner might fit easily within his recommended food choices for the day.

One key to making wise food choices is knowing how much you are eating, as well as how much you should eat. This is especially important if you are trying to lose weight or manage your weight.

Tips to help you choose sensible portions When eating out: Choose a "small" or "medium" portion. This includes main dishes, side dishes, and beverages as well. Remember that water is always a good option for quenching your thirst. If main dish portions are larger than you want, order an appetizer or side dish instead, or share a main dish with a friend. Resign from the "clean your plate club"-when you've eaten enough, leave the rest. If you can chill the extra food right away, take it home in a "doggie bag." Ask for salad dressing to be served "on the side" so you can add only as much as you want. Order an item from the menu instead of the "all-you-can-eat" buffet. At home: Once or twice, measure your typical portion of foods you eat often. Use standard measuring cups. This will help you estimate the portion size of these foods and similar foods. Be especially careful to limit portions of foods high in calories, such as cookies, cakes, other sweets, and fats, oils, and spreads. Try using a smaller plate for your meal. Put sensible portions on your plate at the beginning of the meal, and don't take "seconds."

Don't be fooled by large portions

Many items sold as single portions actually provide 2 or more Pyramid servings. For example, a large bagel may actually be equal to 3 or 4 servings from the Grains group. A restaurant portion of steak maybe more than the recommended amount for the whole day. Chart 2 lists other common examples of foods that are often sold or prepared in portions larger than 1 Pyramid serving.