When's the last time you ate just two Oreos?
Yeah. Me neither. Yet that is the standard Food and Drug Administration serving size listed on the back of the package. In other words, eating two of these cookies will give you the caloric equivalent of a standard snack — 140 calories, or about the same as:
- Two apples
- One piece of (lightly) buttered toast
- 10 cups of spinach
In May the FDA announced that it was updating these serving sizes, or, in agency parlance, "reference amounts customarily consumed per eating occasion," so that they would better reflect how much of each item people actually eat. Those changes go into effect in summer 2018.
Read on to see what the standard serving sizes of your other favorite foods look like now:
Granola is commonly touted as a health food, but in reality it's pretty high in sugar, carbs, and calories and not very high in protein. A quarter-cup serving has:
150 calories
7 grams of fat
18 grams of carbohydrates
3 grams of protein
This movie snack is fat-free but still pretty high in calories. Just four sticks have:
160 calories
0.5g fat
36g carbs
1g protein
Despite being a classic sandwich ingredient and go-to snack, peanut butter is pretty high in calories and fat, with two tablespoons of the spread having:
190 calories
16g fat
7g carbs
7g protein
If you regularly indulge in a pint of Ben & Jerry's, you might want to think about saving some for later next time. A single serving — roughly a quarter of the container — has:
300 calories
20g fat
28g carbs
5g protein
Cereal is an easy breakfast choice when you're running low on time, but less than a cup of Honey Bunches of Oats — not including the milk — has:
130 calories
2.5 grams of fat
26 grams of carbohydrates
2 grams of protein
Nuts are high in healthy fats and protein, but you might be surprised how few of them are in a serving. Just an ounce of Blue Diamond almonds has:
170 calories
15 grams of fat
5 grams of carbohydrates
6 grams of protein
This one's just depressing.
Fifteen lays potato chips — yes, 15 — have:
160 calories
10g fat
15g carbs
2g protein
Two Double Stuf Oreos have roughly:
140 calories
7 grams of fat
21 grams of carbs
1 gram of protein
A piled-high handful of Uncle Ben's white rice has:
250 calories
2.5 grams of fat
52 grams of carbohydrates
5 grams of protein
If you typically douse your "healthy" salad in multiple containers of salad dressing, you might want to scale back a bit. Just two large spoonfuls of Wishbone Italian have:
80 calories
7g fat
4g carbs
0g protein
Sandwiches stacked high with fresh sliced deli meat are a New York City staple, but the nutrition label on the back of most sandwich meat gives the profile for just two ounces of the stuff, which in this case has:
50 cals
1g fat
1g carbs
9g protein
A handful, or precisely 55 Goldfish, has:
140 calories
5g fat
20g carbs
3g protein
Along with granola, trail mix is touted as a quick source of healthy energy. But beware the serving sizes. Just a quarter-cup of Planter's Tropical nut and fruit mix — the amount that would fit in a single hand — has:
150 cals
10g fat
5g carbs
4g protein
Sometimes there's nothing more satisfying than a classic grilled cheese and cup of tomato soup for lunch. But keep in mind that just a single slice of cheddar has:
80 calories
7g fat
0g carbs
5g protein
All images credit: Hollis Johnson