Serving size

A serving size is the amount of a food that the Nutrition Facts label uses to state calories and nutrients. In the United States it is not a recommendation of how much to eat. The FDA says these amounts are meant to reflect how much people actually eat, so the label numbers match real eating.

Serving sizes are built from Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed, known as RACCs, which come from food consumption surveys. When the RACCs were updated, the serving for ice cream rose from half a cup to two-thirds of a cup, while the reference amount for yogurt dropped from 8 ounces to 6 ounces.

Package size also changes the label. A package holding at least two but no more than three times the reference amount shows both per-serving and per-package columns, and packages usually finished in one sitting are labeled as a single serving. Compare products only when their serving sizes match.