Regardless of the type of diet that you are on, it's very important to make sure that you understand the portion size of the foods that you're eating.  With all the ways that food is super sized as far as amounts are concerned, it's not surprising that you may be confused about how much is an actual serving size.  And when it comes to fruits, they usually don't come with the label, which makes it even harder to know how much to eat.

Most people don't eat enough fruit every day based on the amount that the United States government recommends.  If you want to know how much you should eat, go to HTTP://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/ to find a calculator that will tell you how many cups of fruits and vegetables that you need to eat every day.

With that said, when I think about how much fruit you should eat, I am really not talking about juice.  When you eat whole fruits, you get the benefit of fiber and more of the vitamins plus it's more filling.  When you drink juice, although it contains vitamins it can be easier to drink more calories and not get as full.  In the process of eating a whole fruit your body gets the signal that you've eaten something and tells your brain that you're not hungry anymore.  That doesn't happen as quickly with juice, so it's easy to take in more calories.

So some general rules of thumb:

• a large banana is 8 to 9 inches long
• a small Apple is the size of baseball
• about 32 grapes equals 1 cup
• 8 large strawberries is about cup
• a large peach is the size of a tennis ball
• a large orange is a little bigger than a baseball

So those are some general ideas for you about how much fruit you can eat to get a cup of that type of fruit.  

Let me know what your favorite fruit is, and have you tried a new fruit lately?