What is a Serving of Vegetables and Fruit?

Eating Well With Canada's Food Guide recommends 7 - 10 servings of vegetables and fruit per day. This may sound like a lot, but a serving is probably smaller than you think. 

One serving is:

½ cup 100% fruit or vegetable juice
¼ cup dried fruit
1 cup green salad or raw leafy greens
1 medium fruit or vegetable (about the size of a tennis ball)
½ cup cooked, frozen, canned or raw fruits or vegetables or cooked leafy vegetables

In other words, 7 - 10 servings is only about 2 - 5 cups of cooked or raw vegetables or fruit in a day.

But what about foods you can’t measure by the cup? Here’s a guide to serving sizes.

Vegetable or Fruit	Serving Size
Asparagus	6 spears, cooked or canned
Baby carrots	10 carrots
Brussels sprouts	4 medium sprouts
Celery	1 medium stalk
Corn	½ cup kernels or 1 ear
Mushrooms	½ cup chopped or 6 medium
Okra	8 pods
Radishes	10 radishes
Snow peas	10 pods
Avocado	½ medium
Apricots	3 medium
Cherries	20
Cantaloupe	½ cup
Dates	6
Honeydew melon	1/2 c up
Kiwi	2 medium
Lychee	10 fruit
Mango/papaya	½ medium
Passion fruit	4 medium
Strawberries	5 medium

What’s a Serving?

Serving size is based on nutrient values – not on a typical portion – and a portion may contain more than one serving. Confused?   Here’s a quick example: the serving size for fruit juice is ½ cup – but a juice box holds 1 cup, or 2 full servings!  Eating Well With Canada's Food Guide is a great resource fo rknowing your serving size.

Many people think that a serving is the number of times they have vegetables or fruit in a day – so 1 cup of orange juice in the morning; ½ cup of coleslaw with ½ cup of tomatoes and cucumbers on a sandwich at lunch and 1 cup of broccoli at dinner would equal 3 servings.   In fact, if you look at the portion table, this equals 6 servings!

Other people think that every time they eat a different vegetable it counts as a serving – so a casserole with onions, celery and tomatoes would count as 3 servings. But if there is only ½ cup of onions, celery and tomatoes combined, a serving of the casserole counts as only 1 serving from the fruits and veggies group.

What About Young Children?

Serving size varies according to our age, and while children don't need to have as many servings as adults, vegetables and fruits are still important:

• A serving for a baby or young child is about 1 tablespoon.  
  
• A serving for a preschooler is about ¼ of the adult serving.  
  
• A serving for a child in kindergarten is about ½ of the adult serving size.
  
• By the time a child is about 8 years old, the serving size is the same as for adults.  
  

 

Links:

Eating Well With Canada's Food Guide

Translated Versions of Canada's Food Guide

Dietitian Services @ Healthlink BC