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player ready...Portion control is a big way many dieters manage their eating, but it’s time to help dieting diners better navigate the sea of small plates being offered at many restaurants today.
While no one’s arguing with the math that eating half as many fries will provide half as many calories, there are some nutrition nuances to consider when your goal is portion control.
Good intentions to eat smaller portions when dining out can lead you to menu choices that actually might be higher in fat and calories than a regular portion of something else.
Sure it’s better to get a half portion of creamy, cheesy fettuccine Alfredo with 600 calories a cup rather than the entree portion with 1,200 calories for 2 cups — but you’re still consuming 600 calories for a small amount of food. If you ordered a half portion of penne pasta with a meaty Bolognese sauce at 330 calories per cup or angel hair pasta with a spicy marinara sauce at 290 calories per cup, you’d be making a much better choice.
So eating lighter is not just about portion sizes, it’s about content too. Some foods are more energy-dense than others, which means they pack more fat and calorie bang per bite.
Here are a few examples when smaller is not necessarily better.
Pizza: You might think that ordering your own individual little pizza is better than sharing a large pie with friends. You might be wrong. A 6-inch pepperoni and mushroom personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut contains 610 calories and 26 grams of fat. You’d be better off with two slices from a 14-inch large Thin n’ Crispy pepperoni and mushroom pizza totaling 540 calories and 24 grams of fat.
Tapas: A popular Spanish-inspired small plate is a sampling of cured meats and cheeses and maybe some olives. Count 100 calories for each ounce of cheese or meats and 10 calories per olive. So, depending on the restaurant’s presentation, the calories easily could add up to more than 500 pretty quickly. This is definitely the plate you want to share with friends.
Cupcakes: Beware a cupcake that’s supersized or filled with frosting or you may just as well have eaten a huge slice of cake. Depending on the kind of cake used, cupcakes range from about 70 calories for angel food to more than 300 calories for carrot cake.
When to upsize
– Always get the cup of soup? Not the bowl? Surprise! You might be better off getting the larger serving if it’s a low-calorie soup like gazpacho (100 calories per cup) or minestrone (135 calories per cup.) Broth or tomato-based soups are high volume, so they fill you up on fewer calories.
– Go for the really big bowl of berries for the same high-volume/low-calorie reason at dessert. Berries are a good source of belly-filling fiber too. Raspberries are only 65 calories a cup with 8 grams of fiber.