Pickles and How to Log Them

penguinmama87
penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hey all,

Newbie here! I am fond of pickled foods as a snack. All kinds. They have a strong flavor which I find satisfying and are generally pretty low-calorie. Sodium intake is not an issue for my health at this time, which is a blessing. Logging them is no problem if they're commercially made and have a label. But what if I'm making them myself (which I'm doing more often these days especially growing veggies on my own). I feel like using the recipe builder doesn't really help because while the brine permeates the food, I'm not actually drinking it (though I know some people do).

It's possible that the pickling just really doesn't affect the nutritive value that much unless they're very sweet, but I'm also just curious from a food science standpoint, too.

Some of my favorite pickled foods are cucumbers (naturally), carrots, beets, onions, and eggs.

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    I pickle a lot and usually just use vinegar, spices, and salt. I don't worry about logging the brine unless I add sugar and then I'll log the full amount of sugar (although I'm probably not eating all of it).
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    Most vinegars have basically negligible calories (3 cal per tbsp, ~15g, per USDA). Since you're not drinking it, I imagine it wouldn't really matter and you could just log the raw produce? I don't know how much brine, say, a cucumber wedge absorbs in the course of the pickling process - that may be a fun little science experiment, to weigh your raw produce and then weigh the finished pickles to see how that changes over time.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    goal06082021 wrote: »
    Most vinegars have basically negligible calories (3 cal per tbsp, ~15g, per USDA). Since you're not drinking it, I imagine it wouldn't really matter and you could just log the raw produce? I don't know how much brine, say, a cucumber wedge absorbs in the course of the pickling process - that may be a fun little science experiment, to weigh your raw produce and then weigh the finished pickles to see how that changes over time.

    You could log the changed weight, but a vegetable that is being pickled typically loses water volume due to the pickling process, so it would still be impossible to tell how much of the brine one was consuming.

    (Not that it still wouldn't be interesting to note the physical changes, it's just pinpointing the exact calorie change wouldn't be possible).

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