How to Calculate Portions

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Some dishes aren't as easy to portion out as these.

Knowing how many portions a recipe serves or determining a serving size for a particular food item helps you maintain a healthy weight and plan menus effectively for home cooking or special events. Old-fashioned or home-created recipes may not have portion sizes listed, or you may want to adjust portions to help with weight loss. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Things You'll Need

  • Kitchen scale
  • Calculator
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Instructions

    • 1

      Weigh the food item in question. If the item cannot be easily removed from a cooking vessel, like a baked pasta in a casserole dish, weigh a similar empty vessel, then subtract the weight of the empty vessel from the weight of the food item in the vessel.

    • 2

      Look up the individual serving size for the food item or a similar item in a nutrition book or website.

    • 3

      Divide the weight of the food item by its individual serving size. This is the number of servings that the dish serves.

    • 4

      Weigh out one individual portion size. Note the size of the portion.

Tips & Warnings

  • If you can't find the food item in question listed, choose the item that seems most similar and/or has most of the same ingredients.

  • The serving size listed on the recipe may not be consistent with current guidelines.

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References

  • Photo Credit Finger food - finger food pieces at Mediterranean wedding image by FotoWorx from Fotolia.com

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