How to judge calorie values given the lack of nutritional facts?

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axcount
axcount Posts: 7 Member
in Getting Started
Hello,

I'm up against a new challenge today. I want to eat at my favorite small-business restaurant today. However, it has less than 20 branches, and so is not federally mandated to put out nutritional facts.

That being the case... How do I track the calories/fat/protein etc?

Replies

  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
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    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    A couple of options....

    You can find a similar dish at a chain that does post their nutritional information and use that.

    Or, you can try to "deconstruct" the dish and log the ingredients individually. You can even ask the restaurant if you have questions about cooking techniques or ingredients.

    Either way, you can't be totally accurate, it's going to be a "best guess" scenario. But, your best guess is going to be better than not logging it at all.

    This is what I typically do as well
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,047 Member
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    This is where learning to log food at home, using a digital scale, comes in handy. Once you log food at home for a while you'll be able to deconstruct any restaurant meal fairly accurately.

    I mean, life is going to happen and none of us log everything perfectly, but I try to minimize my restaurant meals even when there isn't a Covid danger. Right now I wouldn't eat restaurant food if you paid me.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
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    In this scenario: I'd estimate to the best of my ability. Order a food I knew I would enjoy and break it down into components for logging. Such as by estimating the amount of each item on my plate. Not perfect and not accurate, but if I were having a reasonable size meal and the rest of my day/week is known & accurate: the error would not matter greatly.

    BUT for me, this sort of scenario would need to be an exception and not something I did very often. I have a small deficit and so can't afford to have a great deal of guesswork in my logging.
  • axcount
    axcount Posts: 7 Member
    edited July 2020
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    I eat out almost exclusively, and I'm brand new to this whole app. But I'm on pretty good terms with these guys, so maybe they'll give me the recipee if I ask and I can craft the food digitally in that way.

    Failing that, finding a different restaurant that has something similar.

    Lastly, Yirara I believe the qualifiers for small business are 500 or fewer people, 20 or fewer branches, and yearly revenue of $25mil or less. (i googled it and read for a minute or 2 so I could be wrong.)

    Thanks all!
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,200 Member
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    axcount wrote: »

    Lastly, Yirara I believe the qualifiers for small business are 500 or fewer people, 20 or fewer branches, and yearly revenue of $25mil or less. (i googled it and read for a minute or 2 so I could be wrong.)

    I think it depends from one country to another, here it's a maximum of 50 employees only! (Sorry for going off-topic :smile: )

  • RunsWithBees
    RunsWithBees Posts: 1,508 Member
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    I’d not worry too much about a one-time splurge meal and just figure 1,000-1,200 calories for a really filling restaurant meal, enjoy the heck out of it and maybe go for a walk afterwards to help offset some of the excess calories, but that’s just me :)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,564 Member
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    axcount wrote: »
    I eat out almost exclusively, and I'm brand new to this whole app. But I'm on pretty good terms with these guys, so maybe they'll give me the recipee if I ask and I can craft the food digitally in that way.

    Failing that, finding a different restaurant that has something similar.

    Lastly, Yirara I believe the qualifiers for small business are 500 or fewer people, 20 or fewer branches, and yearly revenue of $25mil or less. (i googled it and read for a minute or 2 so I could be wrong.)

    Thanks all!

    For just a one-time thing, it's not that big a deal. If you eat there frequently, but they won't give you the recipe for proprietary reasons (but are friendly enough to answer questions, you might be able to get an estimate of the high-calorie invisible items (oils/fats are the biggie, ground nuts, maybe sugar . . . but the taste should give you a clue about sugar). Estimating is close enough, really.
  • whoami67
    whoami67 Posts: 297 Member
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    What was the meal? It should be fairly easy to estimate a reasonable estimate of calories based on the items you ate. You may not have the recipe, but certainly you can guess some of the main ingredients and figure their calories.

    Always keep in mind that restaurants add more fat than you ever would at home. It was once explained to me that a 2 oz ladle is the most common item used to add oil to a pan to cook restaurant food in. So assume at least 2 oz of fat has been added to any restaurant meal...about 500ish calories.

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