Here’s What 200 Calories Looks Like On Your Plate

If you’ve ever tried dieting or losing weight, calories are part of most weight control strategies. Here’s a real public service for dieters. Check out the sizes of many of our favorite foods that come in at 200 calories. Where weight loss is concerned, sometimes more really is less!

From HellaWella By Melissa Valliant

Your peanut butter’s nutrition label — which states that 2 tablespoons = 188 calories — gives you a general idea of how much you’re consuming, but you might put down the spoon altogether when you see what that looks like next to 200 calories of celery, carrots or apples. (Cheese lovers, be warned: What you are about to see may be traumatic.)

WiseGeek created a brilliant series of photos capturing exactly what 200 calories looks like among 71 different foods (see the full collection here) and sorted them from low- to high-calorie density.

Why did they choose 200 calories? You try fitting 500 calories of celery on a plate! The creative minds behind this project specifically chose 200 calories because they wanted to provide tangible volumes for the entire range of items. Trying to show 100 calories of certain highly caloric foods — butter or oil, for example — would have rendered minuscule portion sizes, while something as high as 500 calories would have been too difficult to represent in low-calorie foods.

Why did they choose these particular foods? Many of the items happened to be in the WiseGeek pantry; others were chosen because WiseGeek wanted to display foods in a wide variety of categories. They avoided prepared foods like lasagna or cheesecake, since their calorie contents can vary by recipe.

The photographers ensured all foods were displayed proportionately by using the same camera, setup and dishware (for photos that used plates or bowls) for all of them. The plate is 10.25 inches in diameter, and the bowl is 6.25 inches.

An apple doesn’t sound like such a bad snack now, does it?