Cup measurement on serving size

Totally weird. I was using a can of SW Garbanzo beans for dinner and it said the serving size was 1/2 cup with "about 3 1/2" servings per can. I measured the beans and they came out to only a SINGLE cup. How is this possible??? How far does the "about" stretch? Sheesh. Horrible advertising man!

user error imo

if you can, I like to go by weight. There's always just how the beans "fit" together in the cup or if there's settling -- just like in cereal.

Maybe those servings included the fluid content as well?

Yes, if it specified 'drained contents' you'd expect 3.5 cups of actual beans.  Otherwise it means, 'can contents' i.e with the liquid.

Original Post by gi-jane:

Yes, if it specified 'drained contents' you'd expect 3.5 cups of actual beans.  Otherwise it means, 'can contents' i.e with the liquid.

Ah, that makes sense. Now I'm wondering how many calories were in the liquid! 

A negligible amount, I`m sure you`re safe rounding them off to 0. :)

With cans, the thing about the water they are packed in is that if you drain it you lose a (not very big) part of the vitamins, but on the other hand it`s usually pretty high in sodium.

I had this happen before with certain foods. It will say one thing on the package and when I measure it out on scale or using measuring cups it turns out that the package may have more or less in it. I guess it all depends on packaging or something!