Green Options

It is very easy to misjudge portion sizes. We get super-sized portions while dining out and most of us do not take the time to measure out what a true serving size looks like when we cook at home. Portion control can be your key to permanent weight loss or weight control. Before your next meal check this list from WebMD of foods, serving sizes and visual clues. Check in with yourself and see how many servings you are actually eating in one sitting.

We are a society being weighed down (literally) by the bigger is better motto. It’s pretty hard to miss the enormous portions you are served at restaurants and even harder to say no to a “great value”. So when the powers that be use mass marketing to convince us that it’s a better value to get the large Coke with your meal or that you’ll actually save money if you add the fries, you think, hey, at least I got my moneys worth. You may want to start to think twice before saying yes the next time the check out girl asks you “do you want to super size it”?

Bigger portions mean we typically eat 30-50% more then we would have with smaller portions, hungry or not. In the last 2 decades, portion size has dramatically increased. According to the The Portion Teller, pizza pies were 10 inches in diameter back in the 1970s. Today the average size for a pizza is between 16 and 18 inches! Starbucks once offered the ”short” cup of coffee, at 8 ounces, but now the smallest cup you can order is the “tall”. At 12 ounces, this cup is nearly twice the size of what was once considered a regular cup of coffee. A Hershey chocolate bar weighed 0.6 ounces its first year on the market. The standard bar now weighs 1.6 ounces. That’s almost 3 times its original weight!

Kale has more nutritional value for fewer calories than almost any other food.

This superfood can be found in most grocery stores all year round, but is truly in season from the middle of winter to the first part of spring.   During this time it tastes its best, and is most widely available.

Kale, (along with its relatives such as Brussels sprouts, collard greens, and cabbage) is full nutrients such as vitamins A, C, and E, fiber, calcium, manganese, and loaded with sulfur containing phytonutrients which have been shown to protect against many kinds of cancer including breast and ovarian.

Try adding kale to soups, casseroles, and salads… or whip up a batch of crunchy kale chips.  They make a great guilt free snack the whole family will enjoy!