Healthy cooking and serving sizes
By CatNPK
@CatNPK (461)
United States
March 26, 2007 12:26pm CST
I eat pretty much whatever I want, although that usually means healthy and good food. What I mostly try to pay attention to are proper serving sizes, although I am unsure how common this is. Between all the fad diets, calorie counting, what is or isn't good for your health, metabolic indexes, how "full" different foods make you fell, bla bla bla - it's easy to get lost and confused. My formula is simple: On the dinner plate, half should be veggies (preferable raw) - without fattening dressings or butter etc. Veggies do NOT include potatoes, corn, or peas, by the way (sometimes a lot people in the US seem to believe). 1/4 of the plate is carbs (like potatoes, corn, whole wheat pasta, sweet potatoes, rice, lentils, barley, quinoa, etc). The final 1/4 of the plate is protein (in my case as a vegetarian, it includes legumes, tofu, etc). My weight has stayed steady at 130 lbs for almost 10 years this way.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@vogelvrij (196)
• Netherlands
31 Mar 07
The point is with your suggestion of diverting the plate in places where food must be hold on, the size of plates is getting bigger every 10 years! Try it out yourself. Pick a piece of your dinnerware you used 10 years ago and pick a piece of the dinnerware you use thesedays. For now the plates are bigger! The whole industry in China where your plates were made is going to develop more bigger plates....
So your way of diverting the food is a kind of a start but not working for most people!
The right amounts for food are as follows:
75 gram of the meats, low fat meats prefer
125 grams of boiled potatoes, boiled rice or boiled pasta (plain pasta, no red sauce)
200 grams of boiled vegetables, whatever you like
Thats your plate for dinner! Nothing more!
And as a sideplate you need every dinner a large bowl of raw veggies (put in pickles, lettuce, cucumber, sweet pepers, hot pepers, spinach, corn, radice, whatever veggies you love to eat cold), no dressings!
You have to weight your food on a scale! Guesses with the eye means a lot of the time you dont get the proper serving sizes! Use the scale!
@CatNPK (461)
• United States
31 Mar 07
I want to add that the amount of food a person needs varies greatly by age, body composition, metabolism, and level of physical activity. I'm vegetarian, so no meat for me but I eat a lot of protein in its many other forms. The average amount of protein needed is 0.8 grams per kilo of ideal body weight (1 kilogram=2.2lbs), which applies to all but about 2.5% of people who need more due to extremely strenuous exersice or metabolic problems. Note that it's for ideal body weight, not actual weight. So for me, I need about 48 grams of protein as part of a diet to maintain my current (and ideal) weight of 130lbs/60kg. There is another note already discussing plate sizes, but my intent was not to use the plate to measure the amount of food - only the fraction of food compared to itself. Eye-balling serving sizes is actually really easy. For example, a serving of cheese is the size of a dice, a serving of rice the size of a tennis ball. I don't bother with serving sizes for vegetables, those I just eat tons of both cooked and raw.
@cutepenguin (6430)
• Canada
26 Mar 07
Interesting. I've never really paid attention to this, although I might now. I usually just use a small plate, and then if I am still hungry, will take seconds of the veggies. (usually salad).
@CatNPK (461)
• United States
29 Mar 07
I have done that too. My roommates bought these gigantic plates that really prove the point. If I use them instead of regular sized plates, I always eat more. And if I then use our small plates, I will eat even less than that in spite of getting a second helping.
@mukulmisra24 (1703)
• India
27 Mar 07
hey thanks for this great recipe ,actualy i dont know much about cooking and dont want to spoil food with my poor cooking ,but i will definetly try this ,if i get time,thanks again..
