Portion Sizes

Standard Portion Sizes

Since the 19th century, metabolic researchers have been exploring the relationship between nutrient needs and health, energy (calories) consumed in foods and beverages, energy expended through physical activity, and weight balance. The central feature in all of this inquiry is how much food, or what portion of food, is consumed. Bigger portions of any food item yield more energy (calories) and nutrients to the consumer.

To facilitate nutrition education and food labeling efforts, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have derived a set of standardized or reference portions for the majority of commonly eaten foods in the American diet called the Reference Amounts Commonly Consumed per Eating Occasion (RACC). These RACCs are enumerated and defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (Federal Register)—Title 21, Volume 2, and are intended to reflect the amount of each food item typically consumed per eating occasion as reported through national food consumption surveys of individuals more than 4 years of age. The RACC list consists of 139 categories of foods regulated by the FDA (e.g., beverages, bakery products, cereal, and grain products), 23 categories for meat and poultry regulated by the USDA, and 11 categories of foods commonly consumed by children less than the age of 4 years (e.g., ready-to-eat cereals, juice, and vegetables for toddlers). Survey populations, from whom food consumption data are collected, are selected randomly to represent the general U.S. population. According to the Federal Register, final calculations of portion sizes for individual foods are derived with consideration for the mean, median, and modes of reported intakes from survey respondents. In the case of foods for which there is insufficient survey data, RACCs are determined using a variety of other sources, such as serving sizes that are provided by product manufacturers or standard portions defined by other countries.

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