4 servings per Ben & Jerry’s pint sounds right to me, even a little high! I’d get probably 6 servings per pint, though I’ve never actually counted. I’ve got 3 pints in the freezer right now, I will see how long it takes to go through one of them. But I actually have self control and don’t continue to eat everything just because it tastes good.
I think it would be beneficial to everyone, to require “total, this container” data to be listed alongside the “in one serving” data.
I mean, I lack self-control when it comes to food and drink, but I’m not sure I’ve ever finished an entire pint of ice cream by myself. That’s a lot of ice cream!
Many foods do this and I agree that it is a useful stat to have handy without having to do any calculations. I can do the math quickly and easily enough in my head, but I know that a lot of people can’t or won’t.
I used to work and live along the Appalachian Trail in NH. When thru-hikers would come through, we’d bring them over to the local convenience store where they’d go in, buy a pint of B&J, come out and eat the whole thing.
Then they’d go back in, buy a second pint, and repeat. Sometimes they’d get a third.
6 servings!? What a glutton. I eat it by the thimbleful.
Well I for one am thankful to all the little gods that at least some people around here are paragons of self/impulse control. Would that the rest of us hedonistic gluttons could but emulate their iron wills. Surely the world would be a much better (than everyone else) place.
Jesus. I mean, I’m not a skinny guy or a paragon of self-control, that’s just a shit ton of ice cream to me,
Sometimes I use My Fitness Pal when I want to drop a few pounds. Probably the most useful thing it does for me is recalibrate what I think of as a serving size. Plus I do actually measure my cereal now!
Back in high school I tried putting on weight. I’d eat 3 liters of ice cream in one sitting every day. It didn’t work, so I stopped.
Or maybe 100 g. for non-liquid products, and something else (100 ml?) for liquids? I’d think using a weight measure for liquids might make things unnecessarily complicated for stuff that’s not the same density as water. (for example 40 proof alcohol and oils seem to be about 10% lower in weight for the same volume.)
I applaud you. Then again, my wife then-girlfriend would make fun of me when I called a twelve portion frozen package of frozen pierogi a “single serving” (it’s more realistically at least two, and probably three or four if we’re counting it as part of a meal, and not the whole meal.)
How many? And more importantly, what filling?
That’s the sucker punch isn’t it? For 30 years you get into your head what a serving size is. Eat less and you’re tired all the time, eat more and there are no consequences. And then the rules change seemingly over night. I’ve seen people recognize and respond to the change, and it does take an admirable effort. And good for them (Really. I know I was snarky about it, but I really am in awe–I wrote that other post just before lunch and was feeling a bit bitchy).
The serving size on a box of cereal is absurdly, ridiculously, preposterously low. If I only ate that much, I would be hungry again in an hour. Same with pasta. A pound box of spaghetti is supposed to serve eight people. Nobody I know only eats 2 oz. of spaghetti or pasta, unless it is a side dish. As pulykamell mentions about pierogis, the same holds true of raviolis. A frozen bag of raviolis goes about half as far as the label indicates.
My sister and I cook a 7 oz package of spaghetti with a jar of sauce, a pound of meat browned in, and eat it that night and twice left over. One slice of garlic bread each each night. I’d really l prefer it with about .75 pounds of meat, but I’m too lazy to defrost so always buy fresh, and they don’t sell meet pre-packaged in that size. But I admit, the meat adds calories. And it “lasts” longer than carbs, which is why cereal is a snack, not a meal.
Really, though, you can’t pretend that Americans don’t overeat by a lot, in general. Either too much food, or too much of the wrong food. You know, eat a smaller portion of spaghetti and meat sauce and a larger portion of veggies on the side. They fill you up with volume, and few calories. Of course, I don’t like veggies, so skip them altogether, but I still know that’s what I should do.
Put a 1/4 cup of Grape-Nuts into a bowl and tell me with a straight face “That’s a healthy breakfast”.
Sorry. By “twelve portion,” I meant “twelve pierogi.” Not twelve servings. A full carton would be about a thousand calories. And potato & cheese, as far as the filling goes!
When I get the frozen lunch meals of pasta, 2 oz of pasta is probably about right. And I feel fine and fully sated afterwards. The problem with pasta – and the reason I try not to make it too much for myself – is that given a pot of pasta, I will try to eat the whole damned thing. I’m sure I could eat an entire pound of it without a second thought.
Grape-Nuts serving size is 1/2 cup. I know, because that’s exactly how much I ate, with one cup of milk (their recommendation was 1/2 cup, I believe), when I was minding my calorie intake a little more closely. And that, honestly, was fine for me, but I don’t like big breakfasts.