Cooking from scratch

martina1606

I'm new to this and I would like to know how to track if i cook from scratch.
Advise and tips welcome 😊
Thank you 😀

amy19355

Get a digital scale for the kitchen counter and weigh all the solid ingredients and look them up in the food database here.

Use proper measuring cups or spoons for liquid ingredients

whiskey9890

In the food diary section there is a recipe tab where you can add your own recipes. You add your ingredients there and how many servings.

Lounmoun

You can enter your recipe into the app or on the web site and log the recipe.

linda9150

My greatest frustration in adding a recipe is that I don't always know how many servings the recipe will give. I have come realize that I can simply guess and then go back and edit the number of servings at the end.

somethingsoright

One thing that's made it easier for me to accurately log recipes that are hard to divide into equal parts (like chili or soup) is to label it as one serving. I weigh each ingredient, write the amounts down, add it to the recipe creator here, and then add up the total weight of the ingredients. (And I like to include the total gram weight in my recipe name, so there's no scrambling around looking for that number.) Then whenever I want a portion, I weigh it out and divide by the total grams to log my serving size into MFP.

(Damn, I hope this makes sense. )

FL_Hiker

Many recipes online now days include nutrition info at the end, just add that to the database or I’ll use some common sense and pick something similar that’s already in the database. I just wing it and give myself a normal size serving that isn’t outrageous.

nutmegoreo

somethingsoright wrote: »

One thing that's made it easier for me to accurately log recipes that are hard to divide into equal parts (like chili or soup) is to label it as one serving. I weigh each ingredient, write the amounts down, add it to the recipe creator here, and then add up the total weight of the ingredients. (And I like to include the total gram weight in my recipe name, so there's no scrambling around looking for that number.) Then whenever I want a portion, I weigh it out and divide by the total grams to log my serving size into MFP.

(Damn, I hope this makes sense. )

As an alternative, I weigh the finished product, and use that at my total number of servings. Then when I take a portion, I weigh it, and that becomes my number of servings.

nutmegoreo

OP, I hope that you aren't completely confused yet. Start here:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe_parser

mgalsf12

I cook from scratch. Simply weigh the food ingredients as you cook to know the total calories in the dish. Then weigh the completed dish and divide by the portions.

amy19355

linda9150 wrote: »

My greatest frustration in adding a recipe is that I don't always know how many servings the recipe will give. I have come realize that I can simply guess and then go back and edit the number of servings at the end.

I cook in bulk for meal prep, and the per portion serving I figure out this way: (on paper with pencil)
Add up all the individual things that went into the meal. All the calories, fat, carbs, protein ,etc. Use a common unit of measurement for everything. (I like grams and use my scale for consistency).
Weigh the whole pile. Write that number down.
Weigh out one serving. Divide that number into the one you wrote down above.
That’s how many servings the recipe made.
Divide the number of servings into any of the calorie, fat, carb, protein totals that you wrote down in the beginning.
That’s the nutrition info I use.

Hope that helps.

Lolinloggen

linda9150 wrote: »

My greatest frustration in adding a recipe is that I don't always know how many servings the recipe will give. I have come realize that I can simply guess and then go back and edit the number of servings at the end.

If that happens (most of mine are 2p person servings and cooking in one go) I add up the weight of all ingredients and make one serving (in the recipe) at 100 or whatever g of choice and put that in the title of the recipe

JaiNicole7

I weigh/measure each ingredient and scan or enter each one manually, to add my recipes to MFP. I cook meals for 5 people who each get 2 servings per day (roughly). There's usually a little bit additional left over, but I figure saying 20 servings is fairly accurate. My rationale is if it makes a few extra servings then that puts me on erring on the side of caution vs logging much less than I consume-which of course would be bad.

kshama2001

nutmegoreo wrote: »

somethingsoright wrote: »

One thing that's made it easier for me to accurately log recipes that are hard to divide into equal parts (like chili or soup) is to label it as one serving. I weigh each ingredient, write the amounts down, add it to the recipe creator here, and then add up the total weight of the ingredients. (And I like to include the total gram weight in my recipe name, so there's no scrambling around looking for that number.) Then whenever I want a portion, I weigh it out and divide by the total grams to log my serving size into MFP.

(Damn, I hope this makes sense. )

As an alternative, I weigh the finished product, and use that at my total number of servings. Then when I take a portion, I weigh it, and that becomes my number of servings.

I used to do traditional serving sizes but using total weight for # of servings is what I do now. It's so much easier, not to mention more accurate.

I have a list of the weights of my common pots, pans, and casserole dishes. I get the total weight in grams, subtract the container weight, and enter that into the recipe database as # of servings - say 2000. Then in the food diary if I have 300 grams today, or 350 grams the next day, I enter that.

happytree923

I make a recipe using the recipe builder, weighing ingredients as I cook. I have a little notepad so I can write down the weight of things like produce (logging 200 grams onion instead of 1 large onion etc). I make the entire recipe one serving. Then after I'm done cooking, I weight the entire finished recipe and create a custom food using the weight of the entire recipe as one serving, and use the nutrition information from the recipe I already made. Using a real example-

1. Create potato leek soup recipe, using weight in grams for leeks, onion, potatoes, butter and volume measurements for liquids and seasonings. Mark the entire recipe as one serving so the nutrition facts says 1600 calories, 250 grams carbs etc per serving.
2. Finish cooking, weigh the entire batch of soup. Entire batch weighs 2000 grams so make a custom food and make a single serving 2000 grams, copy nutrition info from recipe.
3. MFP gives me the option to log the custom food in increments of 2000 grams or 1 gram. Use the 1 gram option to log weighed out servings throughout the week.

Hope this makes sense!

lynn_glenmont

happytree923 wrote: »

I make a recipe using the recipe builder, weighing ingredients as I cook. I have a little notepad so I can write down the weight of things like produce (logging 200 grams onion instead of 1 large onion etc). I make the entire recipe one serving. Then after I'm done cooking, I weight the entire finished recipe and create a custom food using the weight of the entire recipe as one serving, and use the nutrition information from the recipe I already made. Using a real example-

1. Create potato leek soup recipe, using weight in grams for leeks, onion, potatoes, butter and volume measurements for liquids and seasonings. Mark the entire recipe as one serving so the nutrition facts says 1600 calories, 250 grams carbs etc per serving.
2. Finish cooking, weigh the entire batch of soup. Entire batch weighs 2000 grams so make a custom food and make a single serving 2000 grams, copy nutrition info from recipe.
3. MFP gives me the option to log the custom food in increments of 2000 grams or 1 gram. Use the 1 gram option to log weighed out servings throughout the week.

Hope this makes sense!

It doesn't really make sense to me. I don't see the point of creating the food entry after you've already created the recipe. Why not just make the recipe 2000 servings and then enter the number of grams in your actual portion when you some throughout the week? I'm not seeing the benefit of the extra step (which is actually many steps, as you have to fill in all the nutrition information for the food entry). Am I missing something?

Cahgetsfit

linda9150 wrote: »

My greatest frustration in adding a recipe is that I don't always know how many servings the recipe will give. I have come realize that I can simply guess and then go back and edit the number of servings at the end.

yep! I now try to split them into 100g portions. So for example if I make a bolognese sauce with 500g meat and the rest of the stuff I chuck in there like onions, carrots, tomatoes, whatever - I weigh them all up too and see how much it would come to in total (roughly of course), so it could be that the end result will weigh say 800g. So then I save the recipe as 8 servings of 100grams. Then when I eat it I will log 1 or 1.5 or 2 or whatever "serves"