Calories for slow cooker meals

reginastiffler

I work the night shift, so I make a lot of slow cooker meals because then it's ready once my boyfriend gets home from work and I don't have to wake up to cook him dinner. Sometimes, these are pretty much meat cooking in some sort of liquid. The liquid ends up getting dumped after we're done, so it seems off to include them in the calories.
For example, I cook chicken legs in a bottle of light italian dressing with added water. Then we eat the chicken out of it. I'm also making chicken adobo tonight, so all the vinegar/soy sauce which doesn't get absorbed by the chicken is going to just get drained.
How do you guys count these calories? Just count that you ate them anyway or what?

Sandcastles61

I use my slow cooker a lot too. I personally prefer to overestimate my calories so I include everything I put into the pot. Realistically, your supposed to use raw food values and don't use up very many extra macro nutrients or calories by pouring off the fats, extra marinade and liquids from the protein/ veggies that are cooked. It's the same if you cook in the oven or on the grill... Those residual liquids pretty much evaporate with those cooking methods where they don't tend to in the crock pot, so you're just seeing more of them.