A cup of vegetables can consist of what amount of raw leafy vegetables?

A cup of vegetables can consist of 2 cups of raw leafy vegetables due to the way serving sizes are defined in dietary guidelines. Raw leafy greens are typically very low in calories and have a high volume due to their air-filled structure. When measuring raw leafy vegetables, nutrition guidelines often recognize that they can be compressed, meaning you can pack more of them into a measuring cup compared to denser vegetables.

This is why the serving size expands to 2 cups. For instance, if you’re making a salad, you could easily fill a measuring cup with loosely packed spinach or romaine, and it would count as 2 cups towards your vegetable intake, providing greater nutrition per serving. The emphasis on leafy greens also aligns with recommendations to increase vegetable consumption for better health outcomes, illustrating how the measurement accommodates their unique characteristics.