Veggie portions- raw vs cooked

[Valeneloren]

Just wondering if anyone knows if the 1-3 cup veggie portion of the template is measured raw or cooked? For some veggies it wouldn't matter much but for things like mushrooms or spinach It would be a major difference! I leaning toward measuring raw, just wanted some other opinions. Thanks!

[Munkers]

Vegetables that cook down (like spinach and other greens) are less satiating that veggies like broccoli or potatoes which maintain most of their volume after cooking. One cup of spinach, with a meal, is almost nothing in terms of plant matter. Three cups is better, but still likely to leave you hungry after a few hours if you don't add other veggies to the meal.

 

You may want to focus less on the 1-3 cup measure and focus more on filling your plate with vegetables. Put your protein on a dinner plate and then cover the rest of your plate in vegetables. 

[SpinSpin]

For me, I use the 1-3 for cooked veggies, and typically have more than 3 cups at a meal. Like Munkers said, greens cook away to nothing -- a whole bag of raw spinach cooked down, barely makes anything on the plate. I do not count cups of greens when I have salad -- which right now has been 3 meals a day since I have a spiralizer. I spiralize zucchini, carrots, cucumbers -- pretty much anything I can spiralize! And toss them with salad greens -- spinach, power greens, romaine, baby greens, and other veg, and I don't count the greens at all. Plus, the more veg you can get in, the better.  The size of my salads? The BIG pyrex mixing bowl -- 4-5 qts.