Working out veggie quantities in a recipe...[pic attached]

[chocciechocface]

I struggle with this. I've not been well recently and want to try aim for Amelia Freer's food pyramid in a day ( I'm vegetarian) to try feel better.

If I am cooking for my family, and I make a basic normal recipe, how do I work out what each of us are getting from a recipe?

For example, yesterday I bulk cooked a pulse and veggie stew. I got four meals out of it, and there are four of us, but two are children. I've always considered this one of our most nutritious meals but I'm now not sure it is.

The recipe had 6 medium carrots in it, 2 onions, 4 sticks of celery, 0.5 large courgette , 4 tins chopped tomatoes.

If I divide each by 8 (4 meals, and then 4 people). It works out, per person as,

0.75 carrot
0.25 onion
0.5 celery
0.06 courgette
0.5 of a tin of tomatoes

In addition, each person would have 0.5 cup dry brown lentils cooked up - not sure what the quantity of that is.

So is that a mere 1.5 vegetables in this entirely veggie meal 😨?
What does the tomato resolve to as a portion?
And the lentils?

And how would you factor this on the pyramid (see pic)


I honestly thought this meal shovelled healthy stuff into my family. I'm now thinking I'm falling way short.

[AudTheDeepMinded]

I think you need to relax a bit, that looks a great veggie meal and is a small part of a daily food intake. It's hardly chicken nuggets and oven chips is it? Have you anxiety problems usually? You're doing a great job, honestly! Kudos if you actually get all the family to eat it without moaning too!

[wowfudge]

Why have you divided the quantities by 8? I'm not following that bit. How many adult portions did you get?

[wowfudge]

Stick some frozen spinach in and you've got green leafy veg in there too.

[chocciechocface]

@AudTheDeepMinded

I think you need to relax a bit, that looks a great veggie meal and is a small part of a daily food intake. It's hardly chicken nuggets and oven chips is it? Have you anxiety problems usually? You're doing a great job, honestly! Kudos if you actually get all the family to eat it without moaning too!

I'm not anxious - I just want to understand it properly. As I said in my OP, I've not been well for a while so am making a more concerted effort to improve my health via diet.

[chocciechocface]

@wowfudge

Why have you divided the quantities by 8? I'm not following that bit. How many adult portions did you get?

It was a bulk recipe, so I got four meals out of it. Three for the freezer.

Each meal serves our family of two adults and two children.

That's why 8. Does that make sense or have I been daft?

[SallySolardel]

A portion for adults is 80g. A tin of tomatoes is usually 400g, so the tomatoes on their own are a portion (at least - technically 2, but I'm not sure if your pyramid allows the same thing to count twice). Carrots are about 60g each so that's about half a portion.

A portion for children is about the size of their fist.

[Seeline]

You got 4 meals, each of which serves 4 people so that is 16 portions.

I can' see where the 8 is coming from wither.

[CountFosco]

You've been daft. Four meals for 4 people is 16 portions. That's assuming the DC eat as much as you and DH, could be 3 portions per meal rather than 4 so 12 portions overall.

Your tins of tomatoes are 400g each, I use all the liquid and so assume 5x80g servings but there will be info on the tin telling you the 'correct' value. When calculating portions I just go by weight, a serving of veg is 80g of raw veg. So for your bulk meal if you want say 2 servings of veg per person you need 1.3kg of veg.

[CountFosco]

Carrots are about 60g each so that's about half a portion.

You get much smaller carrots than me! A big carrot can easily be 200g.

[chocciechocface]

@CountFosco

You've been daft. Four meals for 4 people is 16 portions. That's assuming the DC eat as much as you and DH, could be 3 portions per meal rather than 4 so 12 portions overall.

Your tins of tomatoes are 400g each, I use all the liquid and so assume 5x80g servings but there will be info on the tin telling you the 'correct' value. When calculating portions I just go by weight, a serving of veg is 80g of raw veg. So for your bulk meal if you want say 2 servings of veg per person you need 1.3kg of veg.

BLUSH!!

Well, that makes the nutrition even worse 😢

[SallySolardel]

@CountFosco

Carrots are about 60g each so that's about half a portion.

You get much smaller carrots than me! A big carrot can easily be 200g.

I asked alexa and then googled it and they both agreed

[GreyishDays]

I’d say it’s three portions, the children’s are probably half portions?
So divide by 4X3=12, not 16.

[Seeline]

Yes - you need to know the weights of the veggies you've used to work out the veg portions for each person.

I don't cook with lentils so don't know how much 1/2 a cup would be, but to be honest, the veggies you have listed don't sound much for four separate meals for 4 people. I don't use much less in a beef spag bog for 4 adults, and would use much more for a stir fry.

[chocciechocface]

This is actually really helpful. Thank you all. Didn't occur to me to get average weights from google.

So, recalculating.... and still trying to figure it all out....

360g carrots
220g onions
256g celery
161g courgette

Veg (excluding tomatoes) = 997g = 83g of veg per portion (going with 12 to accommodate small portions as suggested).

Tomatoes by tin weight = 66g per portion

Therefore total of veg per person is 149g

or

1.8 of '10 a day'.

[chocciechocface]

@Seeline

Yes - you need to know the weights of the veggies you've used to work out the veg portions for each person.

I don't cook with lentils so don't know how much 1/2 a cup would be, but to be honest, the veggies you have listed don't sound much for four separate meals for 4 people. I don't use much less in a beef spag bog for 4 adults, and would use much more for a stir fry.

No, it's not great.

But I haven't ever focussed on calculating actual portions of veg before - I've just cooked real meals with unrefined ingredients, from scratch, thinking that was enough and healthy.

This is an attempt by me to be more focussed on the actual size of fruit and veg portions. I clearly need to do better.

Thank you all for your help. I have a much clearer understanding now.

[Ouchiehelpneeded]

150(ish) is a tiny portion of food. What do you serve it with? Are you not starving afterwards?

Given there's nothing but veg I it, the only way to increase the quantity of veg is to serve bigger portions, unless I'm missing something?