"Dick Margulis" > wrote in message
m...
> Sheldon wrote:
>> On Dec 8, 2:50?pm, "Mary Fisher" > wrote:
>>> What's a serving, in this context (or any other?)
>>

....

>
> Don't get huffy. Mary is in the UK and has no reason to be familiar with
> US food labeling requirements. The USDA defines servings for SOME foods.
> The FDA defines servings for SOME foods. Manufacturers define servings for
> MOST foods. In the case of bread, I'm pretty sure it's the FDA, and a
> serving is supposed to be one slice, not two. And that slice is supposed
> to weigh one ounce, unless the bread is labeled in some way to suggest
> that it is nonstandard (for example, the so-called "lite" breads that were
> a fad some years ago, which merely had thinner slices and so had fewer
> calories per serving). But that's all for the benefit of people who buy
> sliced, packaged bread at the supermarket. It's irrelevant for you and
> Mary and me.

Gosh, thanks, Dick :-)
>
> In the case of the recipe proffered, food labeling requirements are
> immaterial. It appears that the author of the recipe may have intended a
> serving to be about 2.5 oz, but I think it's more likely an artifact of
> the way Meal-Master software works. I assume it asks how many servings the
> recipe makes, and the person entering the recipe has to put a number in
> the blank. In this case, it was probably a guess.

We do have 'serving' limits but I don't know what they are for most
foodstuffs - except that fruit and vegetables (for 5-a-day) are supposed to
be 80g each. Well sorry but I'm not going to weigh out, say, a banana - or
any fruit or veg. I HAVE weighed f&v out of curiosity and find that we eat
far more than the 5x80g. That's all fresh f&v so doesn't include dried
fruits and we don't eat tinned anything - and that's without counting the
grapes in our wine ... :-) Tonight we had fish, sea bass. We had a whole one
between us, far too much probably but it was delicious and you can't really
apportion whole fish. Yesterday, and tomorrow, we'll have oxtail stew, one
oxtail = two meals for two. I wonder what the gurus would determine ...

Carbohydrates are for filling up, nothing else. We never eat chips (only
have potatoes once or at most twice a week). Of course that doesn't mean
that the carbohydrate element of our meals is unimportant, it has to be as
delicious and well prepared as the rest of a meal. Cakes and biscuits, if
consumed at all (for special occasions) are made by my fair (OK wrinkled)
hands and are as special as the breads I make - and as think they should be.

Mary