From: Andy Soos, ENN
Published August 1, 2012 03:16 PM
What's a Serving of Food
How much is enough when it comes to eating? Should you use a big
plate or a small plate to measure? One scoop or two? Think you know what
one serving of food looks like? You may want to think again, according
to a new study from York University. Many people overestimate the size
of one serving of food as defined in Canada’s Food Guide, so they may be
overeating even if they believe they are being careful, according to a
study by Jennifer Kuk, a professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health
Science in York’s Faculty of Health, and lead author Sharona
Abramovitch, a former graduate student at York. The study was published
online today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and
Metabolism.
Canada’s Food Guide is an important tool used by many general
practitioners to help their patients eat more healthfully, says Kuk, so
it made sense to study whether people would be able to tell from the
food guide if they are eating enough of the four food groups: vegetables
and fruit, meat and alternatives, grain products, and milk and
alternatives.
Canada's first food guide was introduced to the public in July 1942.
This guide acknowledged wartime food rationing, while endeavoring to
prevent nutritional deficiencies and to improve the health of Canadians.
Since 1942, the food guide has been transformed many times - it has
adopted new names, new looks, and new messages, yet has never wavered
from its original purpose of guiding food selection and promoting the
nutritional health of Canadians.
Food guides are designed to help people follow a healthy diet. They
embody sophisticated dietary analysis, and merge national nutrition
goals, data from food consumption surveys, and issues of food supply and
production. They translate the science of nutrient requirements into a
practical pattern of food choices, incorporating variety and
flexibility.
"What we found was that the way people estimate one serving is
essentially how much they would normally eat at one time," says Kuk.
"The majority of participants in the study inaccurately thought they
would need to increase their food consumption by approximately 400
calories to meet recommendations in Canada’s Food Guide. This suggests
we either need to change the size of a serving in the Guide — which has
remained almost the same since 1977 — or educate Canadians more about
how much food they should be consuming in a day."
That 8-ounce steak you throw on the barbeque this summer, for example,
alone exceeds the Canada Food Guide’s maximum daily allowance for meat
and alternatives, says Abramovitch, a former graduate student in the
School of Kinesiology & Health Science in York’s Faculty of Health. And
only half a cup of cooked pasta is one of the eight grain servings
allowed per day for a male between the ages of 19 and 50.
Researchers analyzed food records from the 145 participants in the
study, which included White, Black, South Asian and East Asian adults.
They were asked to select what they thought was a serving, and
researchers measured it to see whether the serving size corresponded
with Canada’s Food Guide. They were also asked to estimate how much of
something — for example, pasta — they would eat at one sitting, and to
recall their diet over 24 hours.
All four ethnic groups inaccurately estimated the total number of
servings they were eating in a day: they underestimated the number of
servings of fruit and vegetables, grain products and meat and
overestimated the number of servings of milk and alternatives they were
eating.
For further information see
Food Guide.
Serving image via Wikipedia.
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