23 it's 23!!.....or maybe 16

One of the perks to being a dietitian is that because you are responsible for promoting what food to eat for hundreds of people, food companies/organizations often want to "court" you. It makes sense, if you can sell a dietitian on your food product, you have a huge "in" with your customer base. This happens to me on a smaller scale when I bring a particular rich dessert to church. The thought process goes Alicia made it, she's eating it, and she's a dietitian-- it must be ok!!

Most recently I received some materials from the Almond Board in California promoting almonds. It was packaged really nice with these brochures talking about one serving of almonds. It was pretty clever as they were showing all the different ways you could count up one ounce or 23 almonds: 1/4 cup measuring cup, a shot glass, a small baby food jar, the number that fit on a post-it note. And the almond tin- which they designed specifically to hold one serving of almonds for easy portability. Included in this packaging was an almond tin filled with almonds.

So I'm looking over all of the materials and all over was 23 almonds is one serving! I'm thinking, that's a pretty good number, you can feel good about getting to count out 23 almonds as a snack. If you eat them one at a time it's going to be filling. So I decide to open up my almond tin and enjoy my serving then and there. I open it and decide to count out my 23 almonds. I'm counting 12, 13, 14....umm not too many left...15, 16.....what?? No more almonds?!!?

I was jipped!!! I was annoyed at the missing almonds, but had to laugh to myself. Here they spent all this time explaining a serving of almonds as 23, but then only put 16 in my tin. I mean 21 or maybe even 20 I could forgive, but missing a full 7 almonds was nearly a third of my serving!

Anyway- almonds really are a good and filling snack, full of fiber, protein and heart healthy fats (which everybody needs). You can check out the serving size for yourself or maybe even order your own almond tin! Just make sure you get all 23 of your allotted almonds!