Food and Health Communications

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Portion Control Using Products

We have been researching products that are useful to help teach the importance of portion control.

We came across a whole new selection of foods in a Walgreens - the “movie size” package, which includes chips, candies and beverages. Apparently, you must need to have a larger portion while watching a movie so you can eat through most of it?When sitting most individuals only burn about 76 calories per hour. Yet it is interesting that at this time they can probably consume about 400-600 calories per package if they are eating these movie sized portions.Candy bars, boxes and bags of candy may look like one portion but are actually 3 portions or more. Take for example the King-Size KitKat bar - it has 3 servings of 200 calories for a total of 600 calories per bar! When it comes to candy which is high in fat and sugar you have to be aware of the serving size and of the calories per package that you are bringing into the house.Chips need to be eaten by the handful, not the bowl or bagful. One ounce of chips is 150 calories. It is very hard for most people to eat that many. Fruits and vegetables are better eaten by the handful!Cookies are not a snack – they are a treat. How many people could eat just 9 mini Oreo cookies if they were hungry and wanted a snack. The lockable snack bag looks like 1 or 2 servings but is really 8 servings. One serving is 1/4 cup - and if you were choosing grapes you would be able to eat 1-1/2 cups for the same amount of calories!Beverages with sugar or fat added need especial care for portion control. If you allow the food manufacturer to choose your portion you could be in trouble. We found bottles of soda, tea and juice drink that were one small bottle but more than 2 servings per bottle. One bottle of Green Tea with Pomegranite juice (which sounds healthy) contained more than 200 calories or 2.5 servings per bottle. Practice pouring a bottle of tea into a measuring cup and see how many servings are there and how to visualize them. Or better still, choose beverages without calories.Fast food places offer value meals but our chart below reveals that you spend more money to buy too many calories.Baked goods are almost always sold in really large portions which are >500 calories.The things that people really fear aren't all that likely to happen to them. According to a new survey by the American Diabetes Association, more people reported fear of being in a plane crash, hit by lightning, attacked by a shark, or bitten by a snake, than a fear of developing diabetes, which affects nearly 24 million.