Food Nutrition Chart

Reading food labels and using a food nutrition chart can be confusing.

First of all you need to know what your recommended daily calorie intake should be.

Then you have to make sense of what a serving really is, and you need to understand the methodology behind the chart.

Below is a typical nutrition chart with recommended servings for a 2000-2500 calorie a day diet and a 1500-2000 calorie a day diet.

The chart recommends up to 8 serving of grains, and describes one serving as 1 slide of whole wheat bread.

So can a person on a 2000 calorie a day diet really eat 8 slices of bread every day?

Typical Food Nutrition Chart:

Food Group	2000-2500 calories/day	1500-2000 calories/day	Typical serving
Grains: breads, pasta, rice etc	Up to 8	Up to 6	1 slice whole-wheat bread 1 ounce cereal 1/2 cup cooked cereal 1/2 cup cooked rice or pasta 1/2 bagel
Fruits & Vegetables	Up to 8 (4 of each)	Up to 6 (3 of each)	1 medium fruit, half large fruit � cup fruit juice 1 cup vegetables, raw � cup vegetables, cooked
Dairy	2-3	2	1 cup skim milk 1 cup yogurt 1 oz cheese
Proteins (meat, fish, poultry)	1-2	1	3 oz lean meat, fish, etc. (limit eggs to 1 per day)
Legumes, beans, nuts, seeds	1	1/2	� cup cooked legumes Handful nuts or seeds
Fats, oils	3	2	1 teaspoon
Sugar and other sweets	2 or less	1 or less	1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon jelly

The answer of course is “it depends.”

A typical slice of bread has around 80 calories, so 8 slices of bread is around 640 calories.

On a 2000 calorie a day diet that leaves plenty of calories left for other foods, so yes, in theory, you can eat that much bread.

But the real point of the nutrition chart is to provide an indication of how to balance meals, not to provide strict guidelines of exactly how much food you should eat.

For example, a better way to choose your servings from the grains group would be to eat one cup of oatmeal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch made from two slices of whole wheat bread, and 1 or 2 cups of rice with dinner.

This balances your food intake, provides your body with plenty of whole grains, and helps to sustain your energy level throughout the day.

Another thing to keep in mind is the overall calorie count.

If you eat the recommended number of servings from each food group, and overall you stay within the calorie count appropriate to your weight and activity level, then you will be eating a properly balanced diet.

If you exceed your recommended calorie count then you need to modify the recommended daily allowance on the food nutrition chart by reducing slightly in proportion across all the food groups.

Philip Kustner

A Food Nutrition Chart helps you think about what you should be eating

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