How to measure a serving size for vegetables & fruits..?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpHykP6e_Uk

nowine4me wrote: »

It makes it easier to set them up in your foods by gram. So if a banana is (for example) 1 calorie per gram, and yours is 87 grams without the peel, you enter 87 servings. The other option is to set everything up by 100 grams. You won’t get it perfect every time using MFP’s percentages, but pretty darn close.

Edited to add: use USDA entries (by gram).

I strongly recommend using 100 g serving sizes (then you would enter your 87 g banana as .87 servings -- there's no real "math" involved, just moving the decimal point). The problem with using a 1 g serving size is that the USDA entries don't have 1 g serving sizes for most foods (other than perhaps spice and herbs), and MFP rounds the data for disply, so that the data you see when you check to see if the nutrition information is correct for a 1 g entry is going to be 0 or 1 for macros, and anything from 0 to 9 for the calories. You can't really verify if the nutrition information behind the rounding is correct or not. If it says 1 calorie for 1 g serving of banana, that could represent any number from .5 to 1.5, and you could end up logging your 87 g banana as anything from 43 calories to 130 calories (it should be 77 calories).

IMO measuring fruits and vegetables is just wrong. We should be encouring eating more of those

Another vote for a food scale!

There's no one over weight because they eat too much fruit or vegetables.

Show me a person who got fat eating fruits and I will show you a person with a deep fat dryer and too much time on their hands.

Fatmansyndrome wrote: »

Why would u limit those?

Because they have calories in them.. some things like spinache/lettuce/cucumber I don't bother weighing because they are so few calories. But fruit and other veg like sweetcorn i do. Otherwise i would be eating 100-200 calories a day and not logging it. For people with a lot to lose it probably wont make much different. People who are very close to their goal weight aiming to lose .5lb week could wipe out their deficit. Then they post on the forums wondering why they aren't losing weight even though they're eating so 'clean'.

Fatmansyndrome wrote: »

Why would u limit those?

For me, tracking and logging fruits and veg has never been about limiting them. (However, some people really want to eat enormous amounts of fruit, and for them limiting them in order to get in enough veg, protein, healthy fats might be a good thing sometimes.) But in any case, I like to log them so I have an accurate track of what I am eating, can look back and make sure I'm eating enough and a diverse selection, and if a day is tougher or easier or there are patterns, I like to be able to look at what I ate.

Also, we have a challenge right now about eating 10+ servings of veg and fruit a day, and even though on a normal day I easily hit that (the challenge counts it as 80 g per serving), it's a nice incentive to actually log.

If I were trying to lose, I'd also want to log my veg and fruit so I'd know my real deficit.

I really think that assuming logging is only for foods you are trying to limit is a negative approach to logging, and results, of course, in less accuracy. I strongly dislike the idea that if you write something down or log it that you will want to eat less -- I have always liked logging veg and found it encouraged me to eat more (I tend to eat more veg and little fruit in the winter so right now it's also encouraging me to add in more fruit). I felt the same about hitting my protein goal, fiber, things like nuts and seeds which have lots of cals that I think are good for me, etc. The goal is to get a good diet within your calories (and not be ignorant of what the real calories are), and not to try to hit the lowest possible number, after all.

Anyway, I assumed OP wanted to know serving size to count servings (and hit a minimum) not to limit them. I think focusing on specific serving size is likely unnecessary and a hassle (although we do it in my challenge, based on the UK recommendation/measure).

No one is saying to limit fruit and veg..... what we are saying is you do still need to account for them. I also like to record the fiber, fats, etc that they contribute. Some are calorie dense (such as avocado). Weight on scale in grams.