We receive a lot of questions from people wondering about how to measure their fruit or potato portions.
Your binder states that a small apple or banana equals roughly 1/2 cup fruit whereas a medium apple or banana equals roughly 1 cup fruit. For anything else, you're likely going to have to measure your raw fruit or potato in a cup. Your choice is either to chop up the fruit and place it in a measuring cup or to follow the water displacement method which follows:
◦Get a measuring cup large enough to hold your portion size and about 1/2 cup - 1 cup water.
◦Fill the cup with water to a definite line, such as 1/2 or 1 cup.
◦Cut up the food you want to measure into small pieces so that it will fit into the measuring cup.
◦Add the cut up food until the water line reaches your portion size. (Note: in other words, if you filled your cup with 1 cup water and your potion is 1/2 cup fruit, you'd keep on adding till the water level goes from 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups)
◦Dump out the water. Look at what's left and that will help you get a sense of what your portion size is for that food.
◦If desired, you may then weigh the food and develop your own list of measurements by weight for your foods. (Note: Important! DO NOT just automatically weigh out a 4 oz serving of fruit assuming that 1/2 cup is always going to weigh 4 oz. That's not necessarily true. See our Weights and Measures post for more on the subject.)
Most of us get as close as possible to our portion size with measuring cups. Eventually you get pretty good at guess-timating how much a serving is by looks.
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