The USDA recently revamped their recommendations for foods Americans should be eating daily, and changed the term "servings" to "cups" - Now, we are told for a healthy diet, we should visit
fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov, enter our age, sex, and activity level, and we'll be told how many cups of fruits and how many cups of vegetables we should be eating per day.
But what IS a cup of vegetables? A cup of fruit? Mother Nature doesn't typically present our Clean Eating in nicely proportioned servings...
Vegetables
Asparagus: About 4 spears
Beans, Cooked (black, garbanzo, etc.): 1 cup
Bell Pepper: 1 cup chopped or 1 large pepper (about 3 inches in diameter)
Broccoli: A generous fistful (tennis ball size) of florets or about 16 small florets
Carrots: 1 cup chopped or 2 medium whole carrots (6 to 7 inches long)
Cauliflower: A little less than a 1/4 head of florets
Celery: 1 cup diced or 2 stalks (11 to 12 inches long)
Corn: 1 cup of kernels or 1 large ear (8 to 9 inches long)
Cucumber: 1 cup sliced/chopped or about 1/2 of a medium cucumber (8 to 9 inches long)
Green Beans: 1 cup cooked ( It's about 19 to 20 beans)
Greens, Cooked (kale, chard, etc.): 1 cup
Greens, Raw (lettuce, spinach, etc.): 2 cups (about two large leaves of chopped romaine)
Summer Squash: 1 cup cooked/sliced/diced squash or 1 whole zucchini (7 to 8 inches long) or about 1/2 of a large yellow crookneck
Sweet Potato: 1 cup mashed or 1 large baked potato (about 2 1/4 inches in diameter)
Fruit
Apple: 1 small apple (about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, a little smaller than a baseball)
Banana: 1 large banana (8 to 9 inches long)
Cantaloupe: 1 cup diced or about 1/8 of a large melon
Dried Fruit: 1/2 cup
Grapefruit: 1 medium grapefruit (about 4 inches across)
Grapes: About 32 average grapes
Orange: 1 large orange (a little bigger than a baseball)
Peach: 1 large peach (about the size of a tennis ball)
Pear: 1 medium pear
Pineapple: 1 cup chopped (a little less than 1/4 of a pineapple)
Plum: 2 large plums
Strawberries: 8 large berries
Tomato: 1 cup chopped or 1 large tomato (about 3 inches in diameter, about the size of a baseball)