Calculating calories for Homemade Stuffing

Micah_Johnson

My wife makes an incredible turkey stuffing for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I've tried to calculate the calories for a serving, but would love to have some outside input. The X-factor is the turkey grease, as she actually stuffs the bird and lets the stuffing cook in the bird for 5+ hours.

My base calorie calculation is just the information provided by the bread packaging. The bread is 160 calories for a 57 gram serving. My wife sautés an onion in about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter, but then, other than spices, that's it. She stuffs it in the bird and lets it cook.

I've been logging 300 calories for one 57 gram serving. That's 160 calories for the bread base, and 120 calories for the sautéed onion and the turkey goodness.

What do you guys think? Am I way off base here, or am I in the ballpark?

Dano74

You're more detailed than I so I'd say that's probably ballpark + or - 3-5g fat.

You could also weight the mixture before it's stuffed, then pull it and weigh it again and assume the added weight is from the turkey grease, and subsequently add that back. Sure, there may be some condensation that seeps in there too (or some dehydration) but hey... overestimating never hurt a calorie count.

CyberTone

There is 1.48g fat per 100g of "Turkey from whole, light meat, raw" per USDA 05185.

There is 2.5g fat per 100g of "Turkey from whole, dark meat, meat only, raw" per USDA 05187.

There is 38.93g fat per 100g of "Turkey skin from whole, (light and dark), raw" per USDA 05169.

Assuming that little of the fat from the skin and dark meat ever reaches the inside of the carcass during the normal roasting process, I would think the amount of fat versus other juices (mostly water and some water soluble proteins) that would be absorbed by the stuffing is negligible.