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Weghts and Measurements
A modest proposal:
I recently completed a childhood nutrition class. During a lecture
concerning what is printed on a food label, I realized that I had no
idea what most of the measurements looked like in real world terms.
What is 65mg of sugar anyway? How big is a 3/4 cup serving? I have
measuring cups in 1/2, 3/4 and 1 cup sizes and measuring cups for
liquids from 1/4 cup to 1 full cup, but I'm not about to start stuffing
fruits, breads, vegetables, and soy products into measuring containers.
I suspect that most of the public wouldn't either.
So why not put little pictures of what a serving size looks like on
every food label? For instance, put a picture of a slice of bread on
the food label for a loaf of bread, and a picture of half a muffin for
similar baked goods.
Also, besides nutritionists, not many people can quote 4 grams of sugar
equals one teaspoon's worth of granulated sugar. A simpler solution is
to print the number of teaspoons of sugar next to the number in
milligrams, up to 10 teaspoons, then put the measurement in the context
of tablespoons, up to 10, then in cups, and so on.
The idea is that using familiar measurements would help many of us
grasp how much sugar we are consuming. The current recommendation is up
to 40 grams of sugar for a 2,000 calorie diet, which works out to10
teaspoons per day, which most Americans exceed.
I think the advantages would be obvious: people could more easily
understand just how much food they should eat, and with that
understanding, make more informed choices.
-ctk
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