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Calorie Count

mcarpe423
mcarpe423 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I am wondering about the calorie count when I put something in such as sloppy joes. Does it count the bun as part of the total count for sloppy joes or do I have to plug in a bun separately. Anyone know the answer. Thanks. Mike

Replies

  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,989 Member
    edited March 2021
    If it's something you made, you should log every ingredient individually and not use a generic "sloppy joes" entry from the database.
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
    It really depends on the entry you choose. I would specifically look for sloppy joe mix and a bun separately or create my own entry.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited March 2021
    Figure 600-1000 calories or so depending on size and toppings...but yeah, what they said ^^you can't just pull random entries out of the database.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    mcarpe423 wrote: »
    So I am wondering about the calorie count when I put something in such as sloppy joes. Does it count the bun as part of the total count for sloppy joes or do I have to plug in a bun separately. Anyone know the answer. Thanks. Mike

    If you're picking something like "sloppy joes" from the database, that's just some random users recipe...you have no idea what all they put in it or if it's remotely similar to your own. These are "generic" entries. You'd want to either create your own recipe using the recipe builder or log your own individual ingredients and amounts for a serving, including whatever kind of bun or bread you use. I mean, even if it did include the bun...what kind of bun? Was it white or whole wheat or sprouted, etc...pick a package of buns from the shelf and compare to others...they're all going to be different calories and different macros.

    In general I'd say don't use generic entries. When I was logging, I would on occasion if I was eating out or otherwise in a hurry and didn't want to bother with adding all of my own stuff...but doing that is basically taking a shot in the dark and hoping you're somewhere close to the mark.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    I would consider an entry like "Sloppy Joe," created by someone else, to be so vague as to be useless. You have no idea if the user who created it counted the bun or not, you don't know what their recipe is for the filling, and you have no idea what quantity they're estimating. I can imagine a sloppy joe that could be 300-400 calories and I can imagine one that could be 1,000. You'll want to create your own entry that takes into account what ingredients you're using and the quantity of food you're actually eating.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    a can of manwich is not going to include calories in a bun. is the bun in the can? no? its not included.

    i would not use any user entered sloppy joe entry. i also (personally) wouldn't buy manwich (but that's my own food OCD coming into play lol). Id enter the recipe as i make it. the amount of ground beef, plus the tomato sauce, spices, etc that go into the sauce, get a total weight (say it comes to 3000 grams- which is stupid high but irrelevant), then my number of servings would be the 200 grams I put on the bun, which would have its own, separate entry.
  • AshHeartsJesus
    AshHeartsJesus Posts: 460 Member
    Log each ingredient as best you can including the brand and type of bun. On the food diary it even has a recipe builder!
    LORD JESUS bless
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Its really about the meat. Is it drained? 80/20 or 90/10? Weighed cooked or raw? The sauce doesn't really matter. The bun is 150 more or less.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    edited March 2021
    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    Its really about the meat. Is it drained? 80/20 or 90/10? Weighed cooked or raw? The sauce doesn't really matter. The bun is 150 more or less.

    That's not great advice for someone looking to accurately count calories.
    Most sloppy joe sauces are ketchup-based, so can have significant calories.
    "Artisan" buns can have up to 400 calories. 150 would be on the lower end for a hamburger bun.

    If people follow advice like this, they end up coming back here saying, "I'm staying within my calorie goal but not losing weight!"
    I'm not sure why you'd advocate weighing the meat, but ignoring every other ingredient.

    You should check your facts before you run your mouth. Kroger and Manwich which probably make up 70% of the volume of this product in the US have 35 calories per serving.

    The meat will be 250 to 400 calories depending on the questions I put above. A hamburger bun has 150 calories. Could you find some "artesian" hoagie bun with 400 calories. Sure, if you wanted to have a hoagie.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    edited March 2021
    callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    Its really about the meat. Is it drained? 80/20 or 90/10? Weighed cooked or raw? The sauce doesn't really matter. The bun is 150 more or less.

    That's not great advice for someone looking to accurately count calories.
    Most sloppy joe sauces are ketchup-based, so can have significant calories.
    "Artisan" buns can have up to 400 calories. 150 would be on the lower end for a hamburger bun.

    If people follow advice like this, they end up coming back here saying, "I'm staying within my calorie goal but not losing weight!"
    I'm not sure why you'd advocate weighing the meat, but ignoring every other ingredient.

    You should check your facts before you run your mouth. Kroger and Manwich which probably make up 70% of the volume of this product in the US have 35 calories per serving.

    The meat will be 250 to 400 calories depending on the questions I put above. A hamburger bun has 150 calories. Could you find some "artesian" hoagie bun with 400 calories. Sure, if you wanted to have a hoagie.

    the jumbo hamburger buns I have in my kitchen right now are 200 calories.
    there are other buns higher than that.

    Isn't that special. Do you think that a person who is making his own Sloppy Joe might be able to look at the package and see how many calories his bun has? Or, did you think that since I said a hamburger bun has 150 calories, which it does, he would disregard the "200 calories" on his package and go with my number? Or, were you thinking that he might be in a restaurant or a guest somewhere and want to compare your big bun with his order?

    You are so obsessed with your own 200 cal bun you did not see that I was helping him understand that unless he knows what the meat situation is, there is nothing to be gained from looking up "Sloppy Joe" in the database since that search results in answers from 35 to 480 calories. for the same search term.

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    cmriverside wrote: »
    :lol:@wunderkindking

    I tend to mostly agree with you - but he asked and people are going to try to give him the most accurate answer possible.

    I did the loosey-goosey close-enough use-the-package for the first 50 pounds of weight loss. Then it started getting real.

    I'll say that as you approach Goal Weight, the exact numbers do in fact become really important.

    I want to be able to eat every delicious calorie I have coming to me. It's pretty hard to lose the last 10-15 pounds without significant hunger, and that's when those digital scales really pay for themselves.

    I absolutely agree and I'm getting close to needing to do that now, actually, but man. A lot of this is daunting already and this thread turned cranky pants so I'm cranky pants-ing too:P When people are just starting let them be loosey goosey. Don't overwhelm with 'you need to weigh it all exactly and input a serving as a gram and then input the number of grams you ate and -'

    Just LOG for a while, make a guess and get a ceiling on your calories. A lot of all or nothing thinking's already in play for many people. Add the rest when the first parts are habit. Doing it all 'right' at the start isn't necessary and is just too much for so many people.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    edited March 2021
    The most powerful psychological forces affecting weight loss are denial and aversion.

    Denial is that phenomenon that let's mama think her 22 year old high school dropout who sleeps till noon got the BMW with the 22" wheels for helping his buddy out with his schoolwork.

    Aversion is that force that let's mom ignore the fact that her 15 year old daughter is going out with 3 different guys and sometimes appears at breakfast with the same clothes she was wearing two days ago.

    This is important to know because the MFP data base is so crappy that it is real easy for someone to say "Sloppy Joe? That's 135 calories on the database. I see it in black and white. Think I'll have two."

    So, estimating is not just a means to do more logging or faster and simpler, it is also means to overcome the forces of denial and aversion. If the OP accepts that a Sloppy Joe has 150 calorie bun and a couple hundred calories of meat, curiosity will overcome aversion and denial.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,887 Member
    wunderkindking wrote: »
    Since this is now the cranky pants thread:

    I am getting real sick and tired of the obsession on complete accuracy of logging on this site for EVERYONE.

    Most people who are here do not, in fact, need to be precisely accurate on these things to lose weight. They need to look at the back of a package, roughly estimate and go.

    Yeah, agree, but it's still worth understanding that it's a bad idea to grab some generic "homemade lasagne" type recipe from the database and think that can be remotely accurate (because the ingredients can be vastly different and the cals identified enormously far apart). Can you estimate your ingredients? Sure -- I used eyeballing ingredients and rough cups type measurements when I first started and lost fine, and do that from time to time now.

    But there are people who are such bad estimators even at first (often due to wishful thinking, I think) that they need the advice to be more precise. That is good advice in a why am I not losing thread. I agree it's not necessary in every thread.
    For the OP: Precisely? My sloppy joe - re: manwich sauce + bun + 4 ounces of lean ground beef = 309 for the beef, 150 for the bun (what I have now), and 35 calories per 1/4 cup of sauce (out of a can). Less precisely I put that sucker in as some one else's recipe that comes out to roughly 500 calories and move the heck on. I'm fat. I don't need to be down to exact precision to lose weight.

    But you have general sense of what your cals would be, and so know that entry is okay. Let's say it didn't include anything but the sauce and was 35 cals or that it excluded the bread and was 350 cals (and almost no carbs). That would be off. Once one has been logging a bit, that's obvious, but I think it's helpful to explain the limitations of the database to new people.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    wunderkindking wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    :lol:@wunderkindking

    I tend to mostly agree with you - but he asked and people are going to try to give him the most accurate answer possible.

    I did the loosey-goosey close-enough use-the-package for the first 50 pounds of weight loss. Then it started getting real.

    I'll say that as you approach Goal Weight, the exact numbers do in fact become really important.

    I want to be able to eat every delicious calorie I have coming to me. It's pretty hard to lose the last 10-15 pounds without significant hunger, and that's when those digital scales really pay for themselves.

    I absolutely agree and I'm getting close to needing to do that now, actually, but man. A lot of this is daunting already and this thread turned cranky pants so I'm cranky pants-ing too:P When people are just starting let them be loosey goosey. Don't overwhelm with 'you need to weigh it all exactly and input a serving as a gram and then input the number of grams you ate and -'

    Just LOG for a while, make a guess and get a ceiling on your calories. A lot of all or nothing thinking's already in play for many people. Add the rest when the first parts are habit. Doing it all 'right' at the start isn't necessary and is just too much for so many people.

    The truth is that many people do have success with estimating, but it's also true that there are hundreds of database entries that are absolutely worthless so if someone is choosing those frequently along with eyeballing portion size, it can be relevant. This is especially true when people are newer to logging. Once you've been at it for a while, you get a good sense of how many calories people have, but a newer person might not realize the entry they're choosing for their sandwich is really wrong or they may not have an understanding that their idea of a portion size is larger than the average person's. When I began logging, I thought a standard serving of oatmeal was really huge, so if I was choosing a generic database entry for "bowl of oatmeal," I would have been failing to log a lot of calories that I was consuming.

    In that context, it makes sense that many of us recommend that people get a sense for what their serving sizes actually are and that they get familiar with how to accurately log the foods they're eating.

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