How to figure out a serving 🤦🏼‍♀️

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Famof72015
Famof72015 Posts: 393 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I hate math and as this seems so OBVIOUS to others it’s NOT for me. I’m making recipes and it says serves 8... per serving. How do I figure out what a serving is? So my thoughts are obviously measure everything I throw into the pan, first weigh empty pan then cleare it out put all my food back into the pan weight it and subtract that from the empty pan and let’s say is 500 g then do I take that 500 g divided by eight servings ?I don’t know please help and please explain it like you would be explaining it to a 10 year old! #36yearsofage #eye roll

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
    edited September 2018
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    Yeah, you weigh the empty pan and write the weight down somewhere for later.

    Then put all the food ingredients in and cook it.

    Then weigh the pan and food after cooking, subtract the weight of the pan and divide the weight of only the food by 8.

    You want to divide the COOKED food to find the portions, though. Some weight is lost in the cooking process due to evaporation.
  • 23rochelle23
    23rochelle23 Posts: 269 Member
    edited September 2018
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    1. Weigh empty pan (let’s pretend it’s 500gm)
    2. Weigh each individual ingredient to get your calories for the entire dish (for instance chicken =500cal plus pasta = 500ca plus premade sauce = 200cal = 1200cal)
    3. Cook as normal

    Now at this point there is two options:
    A: Divide into calories per serving (in this example 1200/8 =150cal/serve) and divide up into 8 roughly = servings - this way works if you’ll be eating the whole dish because a small amount of bowl size variation will even out over the week. You don’t need to reweigh for this method

    If you aren’t eating the whole lot
    B:
    5. Weigh the end result (1.1kg for example)
    6. Deduct your pan weight (1100 - 500 =600)
    7. Track the servings in the recipe builder at 600 (or 1g/serving)
    11. Dish up your dinner and track the weight of your dinner as number of servings (I.e 200gm = 200servings - and it will multiply grams/calorie for you).


    Hope that helps
  • Famof72015
    Famof72015 Posts: 393 Member
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    23rochelle23 wrote: »
    1. Weigh empty pan (let’s pretend it’s 500gm)
    2. Weigh each individual ingredient to get your calories for the entire dish (for instance chicken =500cal plus pasta = 500ca plus premade sauce = 200cal = 1200cal)
    3. Cook as normal

    Now at this point there is two options:
    A: Divide into calories per serving (in this example 1200/8 =150cal/serve) and divide up into 8 roughly = servings - this way works if you’ll be eating the whole dish because a small amount of bowl size variation will even out over the week. You don’t need to reweigh for this method

    If you aren’t eating the whole lot
    B:
    5. Weigh the end result (1.1kg for example)
    6. Deduct your pan weight (1100 - 500 =600)
    7. Track the servings in the recipe builder at 600 (or 1g/serving)
    11. Dish up your dinner and track the weight of your dinner as number of servings (I.e 200gm = 200servings - and it will multiply grams/calorie for you).


    Hope that helps

    Thank you, that helps a ton! Thanks everyone.

  • bustercrabby
    bustercrabby Posts: 66 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    Weigh your empty pan. Weigh all ingredients raw and log them as you add them to the pan. After it's cooked, weigh the pan with the contents. Subtract the weight of the pan from the total. Now you have the net weight of your dish. Now it's decision time. A serving is whatever you want it to be. How many calories do you want to eat for one meal? How many people do you want to share your dish with? If you divide it into equal parts, use that number as number of servings. Ot you can use the weight in grams as number of servings, and weigh out your portion in grams, and log that amount as number of servings.

    This is the answer above makes the most sense.

    Indeed a serving size is whatever you want it to be. Four, six, or eight, it doesn't matter. Of course nutrition will be divided by four, six or eight to show the results on the label. E.g., I make six cups of oat free granola, and decided that the serving size should be a half cup yielding twelve servings of a half cup each.

    Although weighing the pan certainly works, I don't find that necessary. Just weigh the finished food, then decide how many servings you want. When you decide, weigh one serving if you want, but in the case where what you've made is in a square or rectangular dish, that's not even necessary. Just eyeball it and mark out how ever many servings you want.

    You can enter that into MFP. You can always change the number of servings in the recipe in MFP.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    Weigh your empty pan. Weigh all ingredients raw and log them as you add them to the pan. After it's cooked, weigh the pan with the contents. Subtract the weight of the pan from the total. Now you have the net weight of your dish. Now it's decision time. A serving is whatever you want it to be. How many calories do you want to eat for one meal? How many people do you want to share your dish with? If you divide it into equal parts, use that number as number of servings. Ot you can use the weight in grams as number of servings, and weigh out your portion in grams, and log that amount as number of servings.

    The bolded is what I do, then when I have leftovers, I just weigh however much I'm taking and that's how many servings I enter. Then if I want a smaller serving one day and a bigger one the next, it's not complicated.

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