Meet Kitchen Scale: Your New Buddy

Not so long ago the only scale I owned was on the floor in our bathroom, and I ignored it every chance I could. Now I have a kitchen scale.  It is very modest, sits demurely on my counter but it packs a punch! Meat, seafood, and  poultry portions are about 4 ounces each.  I use my digital kitchen scale faithfully to monitor and yes, control portion size of proteins that find their way to our table.  The scale is put to work to measure precooked pasta servings after reading the label to check portion size.  It is amazing how different a guess is compared to the actual measurement of food.  Not nearly as generous!  Vegetables, fruits, salads do not usually get weighed,  just the protein or starch element of a meal.  Monitoring portions helps control weight, and fat intake.  Some recipes, especially some old-fashioned bread recipes, call for ingredients by the ounce so the scale comes in handy too.  Weighing 1.5 ounces of a mix of walnuts and almonds for our lunches also puts our scale to good use.  You will be surprised how quickly you will get used to weighing portions.  You will be even more surprised as you appreciate how much protein or starch you used to eat!   After a bit of time your estimates will get closer and closer to the actual amount. The one tool I would never want to be without in my kitchen is my kitchen scale.