While visiting the Natural Products Expo West Show in Anaheim, CA last March, I discovered a new product called the Measure Up (MU) bowl. Measure Up bowls contain markings inside the bowls so you can see, in cups, how much cereal, fruit, veggies, chips, etc. you are eating. Recent studies have shown that we regularly underestimate how many calories we consume and our increased portions have to led to increased waistlines.

Spatial reasoning is not one of my strengths and I am too lazy to drag out a set of measuring cups every time I eat, so I thought an MU bowl would help me determine how much I should be eating when it comes to cereal. While most people eat cereal for breakfast, I typically eat it in the evening after exercising. I am usually starving after a good workout but know that eating an entire bag of potato chips followed by an ice cream sandwich is not the best choice. So I opt for a cereal that has some flavor and fiber to tide me over until morning.

To the left is the nurtitional facts panel for my cereal of choice. The label says 3/4 cup equals one serving . In order to see how much I actually eat, I poured my usual amount of cereal into a cereal bowl and then transferred it into the MU bowl. As I suspected, I eat more than one serving – 1.33 to be exact. So that means either cutting back on how much I am eating or multiplying the information on the nutrition facts panel by 1.33 to calculate what I am actually consuming: 160 calories, 7g of fiber, 7g of sugar, 5g  of protein, etc. There is non-fat milk involved, too, but I’ll save those calculations for another blog posting.  I have yet to do this experiment with ice cream as I am certain that my MU bowls would somehow mysteriously disappear. Thank goodness for those new single serve ice cream cups – they have saved me from myself. 

When it comes to food, ignorance is not bliss. Education is key and understanding portions is an important lesson.