How do I work out my calories from a family meal?

kyle_risi

Hi Team

I'm cooking a chilli tonight for 4 people, since I'm cooking a large batch what is the best method of working out the calories for just 1 portion? Any suggestions? I'm in putting all the individual ingredients but it's coming up as over 1000 calories for the whole meal, is it just a simple case of dividing all ingredients by 4 to work out my portion?

Thanks

cwolfman13

Recipe builder will let you input the ingredients and then assign a serving size

janejellyroll

Use the Recipe Builder.

deannalfisher

recipe builder and then you can do one of two things to calculate calories

1) set the serving size to a set number and then figure out what fraction of the overall portion that weight would be (i.e. 1/4 of the recipe or 1/5)
2) make the number of servings a higher number but use like 10g as the base for a serving (so if the overall recipe weighs 100g, then you make it 10servings of 10g each)

AMV91

I use the builder and add everything, I have the weights off all my pots and pans on a sticky note on the fridge. When the food is ready I weigh it and minus the weight of my pot, then I divide between however many servings I want. 4 for a big batch of chili could easily be 1000 sadly.

What also works and I find I do the most, is I weigh the cooked food, minus the pot, then enter the grams as servings, IE 1360 grams would be 1360 servings. So then I weigh what I take for my serving in grams and enter it IE 405 grams so 405 servings.

DX2JX2

You can also do it manually. Just add up all of the calories you've added to the dish and weigh/measure the end result. Calories per portion are easy from there.

For example:

1 pound 80/20 ground beef (raw) - 1200 calories
1 15.5 oz can of kidney beans - 400 calories
1 28 oz can of tomatoes - 260 calories
1 bottle of beer - 150 calories
Vegetables used in cooking - 100 calories
1 tbsp cooking oil - 130 calories
Spices, other misc. (depending on recipe) - 200 calories

You would have added ~2400 calories to the pot. Assuming that you end up with 12 cups of finished cooked chili, this means that each cup contains 200 calories. If you serve yourself a 2 cup serving for lunch, that would be 400 calories (but don't forget to count any cheese, sour cream, or guac you might use for topping!).

kyle_risi

DX2JX2 wrote: »

You can also do it manually. Just add up all of the calories you've added to the dish and weigh/measure the end result. Calories per portion are easy from there.

For example:

1 pound 80/20 ground beef (raw) - 1200 calories
1 15.5 oz can of kidney beans - 400 calories
1 28 oz can of tomatoes - 260 calories
1 bottle of beer - 150 calories
Vegetables used in cooking - 100 calories
1 tbsp cooking oil - 130 calories
Spices, other misc. (depending on recipe) - 200 calories

You would have added ~2400 calories to the pot. Assuming that you end up with 12 cups of finished cooked chili, this means that each cup contains 200 calories. If you serve yourself a 2 cup serving for lunch, that would be 400 calories (but don't forget to count any cheese, sour cream, or guac you might use for topping!).

Excellent, this is exactly what I have been doing and your comment has reasured me that I'm not an idiot. Thank you

rsclause

If it isn't something you made it is hard to know or if you are in a hurry do this. As I was logging everything I ate I became good at looking at a plate and saying "that looks like 450 calories so I log it as 600" I would deliberately go higher than I thought so I would have a cushion. Same with MFP database, I would always take the higher not the lowest amounts.