Fruit and Vegetables

Common wisdom says you should eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables every day. Problem is, what actually counts as a serving size?

According to the World Health Organisation, adults should eat a minimum of 400g (14 ounces) of fruit and vegetables every day to help stave off chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

In other words, one serving or portion of fruit and vegetables is 80 grams. That’s 2.8 ounces. Eat five portions every day and you’ll hit your daily target.

Great. But what’s that in real terms?

Ah, now you’ve hit the crux of our site. Have a look around. You’ll find photos of one measured serving of all kinds of fruit and vegetables, along with their calorie counts, glycaemic load and a load of other useful information. Here are some to get you started:

• One Serving of Tangerines
• One Serving of Pepper (Capsicum)

Nuts and Seeds

Nuts and seeds are a huge segment of food. You’ll find all sorts of nutrients in different seeds, so it’s not appropriate to use a general weight measurement for serving size. Instead, we’ve settled on 160 to 180 calories as a reasonable amount of energy to eat in one sitting.

Have a look at these pages to see how different 170-odd calories can look from seed to seed:

• One Serving of Shelled Pistachios
• One Serving of Brazil Nuts

Proteins

According to dietician and nutritionist, Dr Mabel Blades, one serving of meat is approximately 100 to 150 grams of uncooked meat, or 3.5 to 5 ounces. This will shrink depending on how the meat is cooked.

We’ll update this post to include the other foods groups in the next couple of weeks.