Once upon a time when plates were not the size of serving trays,  our sense of a “portion” was much more likely to be in tune with what our body actually needed. These days, intuitive eating is “a thing” instead of just plain eating. Determining appropriate serving size is something we need to reteach ourselves after we’re old enough to read.

So maybe you do your homework and read food labels and try to keep in mind how many servings come in the container before absentmindedly dipping into the bag or breaking off a piece. But what to do when the Servings Per Container “varies.” Perhaps you think to you yourself “What the f*** is that supposed to mean? ”

Because I spent 4 years in grad school learning how much cheese is enough cheese, I can help you with this. Allow me to demonstrate using this week’s impulse buy form Trader Joe’s:

Let’s do some Truffle Cheddar math:

• One serving of hard cheese is 1 ounce.
• There are 16 ounces in 1 pound.
• The cost of this cheese is $9.99 per pound.
• This particular hunk of cheese weighs 0.65 pounds (aka 65% of 1 pound—aka 65% of 16 ounces).
• So… 0.65 x 16 = 10.4
• This hunk of cheese weights 10.4 ounces.
• There are 10.4 servings of cheese in this particular container.

For the sake of sanity, I would probably round this to either 10 or 11 servings. What you choose to do with that information is up to you, of course! I’m just saying, when it comes to ambiguous, confusing food labels, a reference point never hurts.

What’s your favorite cheese?