Fried foods - how much oil did I eat?

AliciaNineteen72

It drives me nuts to have to guess on my calories, but it's especially hard with foods that you know the calories of, but you don't know how much oil they soaked up when you fried them. Yes, I know fried foods are bad, but I'm an everything in moderation girl, and I live with 4 guys that I cook for. You have to have fried food sometimes! How do you all decide how much oil your food soaked up? I tend to over-estimate when I don't know for sure, so I could use some help here! Thanks for any info. or suggestions you can give.

jessspurr

I would love to know the same thing.

QuilterInVA

Haven't had fried food in many years and I'm healthier because of it. You could measure how much oil is left in the pan and subtract it from the total amount you started with.

SonicDeathMonkey80

This is a difficult one. I use a Frydaddy and will weigh the starting oil vs the end oil. However, if you want to get nitpicky, you also have the residual crap that is absorbed by the paper towel, spatter, etc. All in all, I find it not worth the effort and just do a rough estimate.

Chokis

There is nothing wrong with sauteeing your veggies in oil, it is very healthy. But yeah, it does make it hard to count the calories.

__Di__

It drives me nuts to have to guess on my calories, but it's especially hard with foods that you know the calories of, but you don't know how much oil they soaked up when you fried them. Yes, I know fried foods are bad, but I'm an everything in moderation girl, and I live with 4 guys that I cook for. You have to have fried food sometimes! How do you all decide how much oil your food soaked up? I tend to over-estimate when I don't know for sure, so I could use some help here! Thanks for any info. or suggestions you can give.

I don't eat fried food, when I used to, I used that one calorie per spray to oil the pan. Nowadays I grill everything, it drains the fat off and before anybody jumps on my back...... no I do NOT consider fat a bad thing, it is just my preference.

neanderthin

Fried foods aren't bad per se, they're just more calorie dense. What your doing is probably the best course of action, as opposed to measuring the oil before and after.

ndj1979

i eat like fried chicken once a year .....

my advice, stop frying food..

jenifr818

I'll base my estimates off of major restaurants that use the same type of oil. For example, I use peanut oil to fry chicken tenders, so I'll look up the Chick-Fil-A tenders to log mine.

herblackwings39

I don't fry often, but usually I'll measure the oil into the pan so I know what I started with, then after the food is cooked and the oil has a bit of time to cool off I measure it again and divide the difference between the number of servings cooked.

bajoyba

I don't fry often, but usually I'll measure the oil into the pan so I know what I started with, then after the food is cooked and the oil has a bit of time to cool off I measure it again and divide the difference between the number of servings cooked.

I think the above advice ^^ is probably the best way to be somewhat accurate. I never fried much to begin with, but I stopped cooking things that way just because I didn't like not knowing exactly how much oil I was really eating.

Edited to add that I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with eating fried foods in moderation. I love me some fried pickles! I would just rather eat fried food at a restaurant that already has the calories calculated for me than deal with figuring it out myself at home! lol

MyJourney1960

I'll base my estimates off of major restaurants that use the same type of oil. For example, I use peanut oil to fry chicken tenders, so I'll look up the Chick-Fil-A tenders to log mine.

That ^^is what I was thinking - find a similar'finished product' from one of the fast food chains and use that as a base.

red8424

I agree with using restaurant items to gauge how many calories were in the item. Or if you want to just do a rough estimate, track 2 tbsp. oil in addition to the meat, veg, etc.

For those that tried to answer the question with recommendations to not fry foods- just stop now. Everything in moderation, people.

Factory_Reset

If you blot the oil off, it doesn't count.

At least I don't count it.

norahwynn

When I do eat something fried I usually do as the others say and log it as a popular restaurants item.

I don't think the OP was asking if she should eat fried food, so there's really no reason to tell her to stop doing it. That wasn't the intention of the post. It really is fine to do so in moderation. :mad:

PikaKnight

When I do eat something fried I usually do as the others say and log it as a popular restaurants item.

I don't think the OP was asking if she should eat fried food, so there's really no reason to tell her to stop doing it. That wasn't the intention of the post. It really is fine to do so in moderation. :mad:

QFT

AliciaNineteen72

I agree with using restaurant items to gauge how many calories were in the item. Or if you want to just do a rough estimate, track 2 tbsp. oil in addition to the meat, veg, etc.

For those that tried to answer the question with recommendations to not fry foods- just stop now. Everything in moderation, people.

AliciaNineteen72

I'll base my estimates off of major restaurants that use the same type of oil. For example, I use peanut oil to fry chicken tenders, so I'll look up the Chick-Fil-A tenders to log mine.

I do love this idea, but the last fried item I made was yellow squash croquettes. I don't know of a restaurant that does anything like that. For most things, I think this is a great idea though, so thank you.

AliciaNineteen72

If you blot the oil off, it doesn't count.

At least I don't count it.

Oh how I wish that were so, but unfortunately, some foods soak up quite a bit of oil when fried. For someone that has as much weight to lose as I do, not counting those things would be a really big problem for me!