Video Story
Watch VideoProper Portions for Dieting
Story By: Kristin Hawley
Source: KOAA
Eating the right amount of food - and no more - is one of the secrets to maintaining your weight. The Good Housekeeping Institute has some methods for you to help you keep you proportioned with portions.
Kitchen Appliances Director Sharon Franke says, "it's well documented that people will eat whatever is in front of them, so we really encourage people to measure out their food and only eat as much as they're supposed to. There's a lot of new products on the market that are designed to help people do that. We found some really delivered, and others didn't.
One product tested was the Food Cuber. It looks like an ice cube tray and it has compartment that hold specific portions. "They come in 1/2 cup, 1 cup and 2 cup sizes. If your waiting stew or chili on the weekend and you know that your diet calls for 1 cup, you can fill up each 1 cup container, and then only eat 1 cup," says Franke. The Food Cuber costs $20.
The next product tested were the Healthy Plates & Daisy Plates. These two products teach portion control through pictures. "Well you can see that it's portioned out into 3 sizes so you know that that is where your salmon goes, and that it really should just fill up that space. And your sweet potatoes, your starch, should fill up the space next to it. Now the biggest portion is for fruits and vegetables on the daisy plate, you get the guidelines without the words and icons, so for grown-ups, it might be a little bit more pleasant to eat off of," says Franke. The Healthy Plates and Daisy Plates costs $18.
But Good Housekeeping dishes a negative review for the Be Better Network's Portion Plate. "It has pictures of common household items, so it's supposed to teach your portion size. The thing we didn't like about it is the pictures were unrealistic. In fact, they were smaller than the real items.
