Pay Close Attention To the Food Label

I just returned from the grocery store where I was looking for some tasty munchies that weren't too high in calories. Most chips and snacks have 120-180 calories per serving. Some serving sizes are quite small!

So I found this new variety of chex mix (their sweet-n-salty variety) which contains 9 servings at 120 calories each. That sounded good, so I bought them.

Well, I started thinking when I got home--this looks almost like a 'big grab' bag of a snack that would realistically only be two or three servings. I started thinking that if anyone in the household opened the bag, they would easily eat half of it and not realize they had downed what I calculated to be 540 calories--an awful lot for a snack!

So I decided to portion the bag out into the 9 servings in little snack baggies.

Only I ran out of chex mix way before I got to the 9 baggies!

Here is what I managed, pictured on the right: Five--count 'em--FIVE little baggies. Now, I think the little ziploc bagful is okay for a snack, but I also think most people would probably easily eat two of the portions I ended up with if they weren't paying careful attention, or dishing out their snack serving before they sat down to eat it. Eating out of the bag would surely be a lost cause!

Meanwhile, if I eat one of these portions I just made, it comes out to about 215 calories. Not what I had in mind for a lower-calorie snack!

If you've been reading labels for portion sizes and calories, good for you! But my little experiment showcases how off we can be when thinking about an amount of a food we might realistically eat. Think about portioning out your snacks in a measured dish next time you count on having one with a reasonable number of calories!