Trying to figure out if you had good portion control, especially with homemade meals can be difficult, and was a total mess for us. I could never figure out if had the correct portions when we had spaghetti and measuring things with cups, when people are talking ounces is madness. The other issue we faced a lot was when a casserole said it was x serving somehow we struggled to get even sized servings. We did try the whole your palm is this big roughly and for this food, your fist is this; but it is really subjective and we just got frustrated.
We have done two things to help with portion control and both are giving us a lot better idea of how much we are eating and what a serving of some food really is. The first thing we did was buy a good scale, it is a pretty basic one and was about thirty dollars. What I like about the food scale is that I can put on a plate and then turn the scale on and it will start at 0, this means I don't have to weigh the plate or Tupperware and then the food. I like having a solid number of x ounces and usually I am surprised at how much or little a particular food weighs. The other thing we have done is use muffin tins for cooking casseroles. This picture above has a family favorite, Hot Diggity Gog, it's from the 'No Whine with your Dinner' cookbook, I do sneak in extra vegetables and don't use corn. Hot Diggity serves 10, so I filled 20 cupcake tins and two a piece is a serving. By using the tins there is more consistency in size than just scooping it out and the muffin tin shape makes it easy to store for later. The other advantage to the tins, things tend to cook quicker. These are our beginning steps into portion control and so far no one is starving and the kids are getting pretty independent with grabbing a Hot Diggety muffin for a snack.
