From the Edge

BY DARYL PERKINS

Guest Columnist

Have you ever sat down with a bag of chips and asked yourself how many calories are in those chips? You turn the bag over and say..hum, only 150 calories, that’s not so bad. You conveniently fail to see the next words, “per serving,” and you proceed to chomp down half the bag, feeling righteous about all the chips you left for someone else. If you had read further you would have known that one serving consists of 13 chips. If the bag contained 10.5 servings and you ate half, you consumed well over five servings and .. well, as far as calories, you do the math.

For ice cream, the serving size is half a cup. Same with pudding. Now, tell the truth, have you ever eaten a half cup of ice cream? That would be like saying you opened a package of Double Stuff Oreos and only ate one. By the way, the serving size of Oreos is two. No, not two rows . two cookies.

For packaged muffins, it is often only half a muffin. For most children’s breakfast cereals, a serving is three-quarters of a cup. I don’t know about your kids but my kids usually ate at least two cups. And that was just for a snack.

M& M’s are 12 per serving. Interestingly, a study once done at the University of Illinois found that when given a bag of M&M’s to eat from freely, the average person eats 80.

One serving of Doritos equals only six chips. As stated earlier, potato chips let you have 13 whole chips, but Fritos only allow 10.

We are told by the experts (The U.S. government) that we are suppose to eat 5-7 servings a day of fruits and vegetables. Since potatoes are vegetables, your half bag of chips could count for five servings and you could follow that with two fruit servings by eating a cup and a half of Fruit Loops. Only kidding. I know Fruit Loops are not really fruit . they are a grain. But, we need 5-7 servings of grain a day also. My dilemma has always been whether chocolate is a vegetable or a legume, so I eat double servings just to be sure I include both categories. Better safe than sorry. Sometimes I melt the chocolate and pour it over my half cup of ice cream and add a banana. Voila! Legume, dairy and fruit all in one sitting! Since I know the quality of food counts, I only use Ghirardelli chocolate.

I am happy to say I have come a long way nutritionally from the days when I believed that drinking a diet soda with a Snicker’s bar cancelled each other out. Somehow I had confused it with algebra, which by the way, I could never pass. I think it is because I really do not care what x equals. (But, that’s a subject for another time.)

I decided to be good and stick to the exact serving sizes from now on. Piece of cake. (serving size: one eighth of an eight-inch cake . Sorry, couldn’t resist) Man, this wasn’t hard at all. I found a good-size plate and on it I put a half muffin, two Oreos, six Doritos, 10 Fritos, 12 M & M’s. Then I scooped a half cup of Rocky Road into a bowl and added three-quarters of a cup of Fruit Loops. It was quite a delightful snack. And, not even one bite over the suggested serving size. I was so proud of myself.

Until next time .