Vegetable Measurements

I’m often asked why the measurements for one serving of vegetables is either 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw. This is known as a “common measure,” used by the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.
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The result of cooking is that we can eat much more of a cooked vegetable than if it was in its raw state. For example, if you took a full cup of broccoli and steamed, sauteed or grilled it, it would shrink and, in essence, you could throw a few more pieces in the same cup to fill it, thereby adding more calories, sugar, and sodium.
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An additional result of cooking any food is that the structure of that food changes from its raw state, sometimes robbing it of vital nutrients, sometimes bringing it to a more gelatinous (or starch) state. So, for example, while 1 medium size raw tomato is 22 calories, 3.23 grams of sugar and only 6 mg. of sodium, if you were to fill 1 cup with canned or stewed tomatoes, the calories would change to 66, the sugar would increase to 8.98 mg., and the sodium ups to a whopping 564 mg.
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The graphic — using tomatoes, carrots, onions, and mushrooms because they’re very common examples of veggies that we eat both raw and cooked — shows you what I mean.