Well, I tried making couscous myself last week for the first time and loved it. Of course, I didn't realize there were non-whole-grain couscous varieties, so I now have 2 more boxes of non-whole couscous in my cabinet, but I also went to TJ's and got 2 big boxes of whole-wheat couscous to use once the stripped ones are gone.

So now I have these 2 boxes of whole-wheat couscous like a good girl, and I'm confused by the label. I know that when cooked, there will be more volume-wise than when dry (duh). The label says a serving is 1/3 cup dry, so when I cook 1/3 cup dry couscous, wouldn't whatever amount I end up with be a single serving?

The confusion comes in from the cooking directions--it says to cook 1 cup dry couscous, and that yields 5 servings. Shouldn't it yield 3 servings, since a serving is 1/3 cup dry?

I did a little independent research, AND 1/3 cup dry couscous = 1 cup cooked couscous at 176 calories. 1 cup dry couscous would be 600-650 calories -- which divided by 3 would be 200-216 calories, but divided by 5 it would be 130-120. BUT -- divided by 4, you'd get 162-150 -- the closest to the original "one serving" calorie total. So I'd say that one cup of dry couscous is 4 servings. Now, that doesn't make any sense, and the only conclusion I can think of is that the more dry couscous you cook together will yield a larger amount of cooked couscous. I mean, one cup of dry couscous is going to yield more than 3 cups of couscous -- one cup being one serving. But I estimate it's going to yield 4 cups of couscous. Just measure a cup of your cooked couscous -- that's one serving at 176 calories.

Maddening, isn't it????

I ran into the same problem with Albers quick grits. On the nutrition label, it says a serving is 1/4 cup dry but in the instructions it says that one serving is 3 tablespoons dry. So I'm left wondering which is the true serving. Do the folks at Albers not know that 1/4 cup is 4 tbsp not 3? Is the nutritional info for the 4 tbsp or the 3 tbsp serving? I finally just decided to go with the serving on the nutritional label. But it is frustrating and I think there ought to be some place where we can report confusing/misleading nutritional labels!