Issue Adding Olive Oil into MFP

Buffm4n

I am having difficulty wrapping my head around how you add Olive Oil into MFP. Say I use 1 Tbsp (110 Calories) to cook chicken, there is still a substantial amount of Olive Oil left on the pan when I am done cooking. Does all that leftover oil still get factored in even tho I am not consuming it?

kissa714

No...if you dont consume it then there is no reason to track it.

kimny72

I try to use only as much oil as I absolutely need to for precisely this reason.

You could measure how much is left in the pan and subtract it, but there will also be chicken juices in the pan as well so no way to tell exactly. You can try to get a reasonable estimate and see how your weight responds over time.

I have def changed how I cook since I started logging.

toxikon

In those rare cases, I usually just log half.

guacamole17

You could either use less oil to start with, or just use the whole tablespoon and put it on your plate for flavor.

try2again

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that you can cook ground beef and have 1/4 cup pure fat left in the pan and this supposedly doesn't alter the calorie count.

cmriverside

Hey, welcome to the wonderful world of tryna-keep-track-o'-stuff.

I wouldn't put that much oil in a pan to start, but if I did I would count the whole amount and I would pour it on the food.

toxikon

try2again wrote: »

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that you can cook ground beef and have 1/4 cup pure fat left in the pan and this supposedly doesn't alter the calorie count.

In that case, you can weigh the cooked, drained beef and use this USDA tool to get the calorie count: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/beef/show

Gisel2015

Use the recipe builder and add olive oil as one of the ingredients, followed by the chicken and what ever else you add to the recipe and determine the number of servings. MFP will do the calculations for you.
Measuring how much oil is left in the pan and subtracting it from the tbs of oil will not be accurate in my opinion, because as @kimny72 said, you will also have the juices of the chicken or of any other ingredients.

lemurcat12

You are probably better off assuming that if you added it, you ate it. Usually if you use a reasonable amount of oil that will be the case (or close enough), and as others said you can't assume liquid left in the pan is oil.

JeromeBarry1

I use spray oil instead of spoon oil.

Just once I weighed the dry skillet, then weighed the oil I sprayed. For the small skillet, it was 1 gram of spray. For the big skillet, it was 2 grams. When I stir-fry in the large skillet, I just log 2 grams of oil..

Annie_01

Most of our calorie counts are not 100% accurate. At best it is close depending on the food.

Take for example a container of yogurt. Unless you lick the inside of that container you leave calories behind. Unless you lick your plate...you have left calories behind.

When I roast vegetables I use a misto sprayer. Most of the olive oil is on the vegetable but some does remain on the pan. I just don't worry about those 20 or so calories. I figure I make up for those by not weighing the food that I lick off my fingers!

Most of the time the calories not consumed are negligible and won't interfere with weight loss.

try2again

toxikon wrote: »

try2again wrote: »

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that you can cook ground beef and have 1/4 cup pure fat left in the pan and this supposedly doesn't alter the calorie count.

In that case, you can weigh the cooked, drained beef and use this USDA tool to get the calorie count: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/beef/show

I appreciate that, but I still don't get it. According to that tool, 85% lean raw ground beef is 60 calories/oz, patty broiled in a pan is 65/oz, and cooked crumbles are 72/oz. I understand it becomes more calorie dense per oz because the water cooks out, but I just look at the solidified fat in the container after I drain it and think, if I ate that with a spoon, it would have to be about 2-300 calories. Like I said, just can't wrap my head around it

missysippy930

Use a non stick pan and get a spray bottle and just spritz the pan lightly. (you can get them pretty inexpensively).
It really doesn't add many calories.

ap1972

missysippy930 wrote: »

Use a non stick pan and get a spray bottle and just spritz the pan lightly. (you can get them pretty inexpensively).
It really doesn't add many calories.

Yeah in UK we have Frylite which I believe is mixed with water and is only 1 cal per spray so I use that wherever possible

livingleanlivingclean

missysippy930 wrote: »

Use a non stick pan and get a spray bottle and just spritz the pan lightly. (you can get them pretty inexpensively).
It really doesn't add many calories.

Just make sure it's a spray bottle, not an aerosol (pretty sure they advise not to use can spray oil on non-stick cookware.)

OP... I get past that issue by baking my chicken in the oven.

amusedmonkey

I wouldn't sweat it and would just log it and consider it a buffer for other logging errors. If you're doing this very often and it's resulting in losing weight too fast, just increase your calorie allowance.

mmapags

lemurcat12 wrote: »

You are probably better off assuming that if you added it, you ate it. Usually if you use a reasonable amount of oil that will be the case (or close enough), and as others said you can't assume liquid left in the pan is oil.

This^. In addition, even the best of food loggers are going to have some margin of error. I just let the few extra oil calories in the pan offset whatever error I might have made on the low side for the day. 50 or 60 calories less isn't going to make that much difference in my overall day.

I think it's a mistake to try to get too precise about what is left in the pan with cooked foods. Let the variance come out in the overall trend.