Wyn Drabble: Size does matter

The scone raised the question, just what is a serving size? Photo / 123rf

OPINION

So I stopped to buy a cheese scone for breakfast in the weekend. Turned out it was as big as a house. I bought a coffee too but the takeaway cup was dwarfed by this gargantuan cheese scone beside it.

The scone was so big you could have cut slices from it with a serrated bread knife. You could probably have served it to a family of four.

Hollowed out, it might even have housed the family of four.

It raises the question, just what is a serving size? And who decides? So-called experts can suggest on a packet of potato crisps that a serving is 10 crisps but that’s the number that many of us eat while looking in the cupboard to see what there is to eat.

I checked with an official New Zealand Ministry of Health website to find out just what constitutes a recommended serving and to check whether my scone might be better measured on the Richter scale.

It gets complicated because the recommended serving size for each food group varies widely depending on factors such as age, gender, your size, level of exercise and whether you are pregnant or breastfeeding. I’ll try to steer a middle or average course and keep well away from the four main food groups I see many children consuming: brightly-coloured fizzy drinks, confectionery, fried food, pizza.

Let’s start with fruit and vegetables (and the document specifies this includes fresh, frozen or canned). The recommendation is “at least five servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day”. A serving is half a cup of cooked vegetables or a cup of salad, half a medium potato, a medium apple, pear, banana or orange.

All easy enough so far though I’m sure we could have a healthy debate about what constitutes a medium banana.

For grain foods, you should have at least six servings per day aiming mostly for wholegrain and high-fibre items. A serving is a sandwich slice of wholegrain bread or half a cup of cooked pasta or brown rice.

This is the category where I feel my scone mainly belongs but, because of its generous cheese component, it oozes over into the next category as well. Suffice to say the scone is off the scale for both these food groups.

You should have two to three servings of milk products and a serving is a glass of milk, a small pottle of yoghurt or 40 grams of cheese.

The final food group is a broad one covering legumes, nuts, seeds, seafood, eggs, poultry and red meat with the fat removed. The recommendation is for at least two servings per day and examples of servings are 100g fish or 65g cooked meat.

Have you seen the size of the steaks some blokes eat and some restaurants serve? 65g would only constitute the first mouthful!

But the website points out that these suggestions are a guide only, adding that “taller and more active people may need more”. Their next sentence must have bypassed their proof-reader because it says, “Follow your body’s hunger and fullness queues as a guide for how much you need.”

I enjoyed the image created by the error. I pictured a queue of plate-in-hand blokes who had only been served 65g of meat! And I thought of the words of Orson Welles: “My doctor told me I had to stop throwing intimate dinners for four unless there are three other people.”

If you are following your body’s cues and are still a tad peckish, I’ve got some of my scone left and I’m willing to share it with you. A number of you. Please form an orderly queue.