How do you choose proper calories?

DianaGetsFit512

So I've noticed certain foods have different calorie counts quite often... what do you guys do? Choose the highest? Cut it halfway or choose the lowest??

Hiawassee88

I use a calorie book that's updated every year and verify. I used to add another crowd sourced entry but that adds to the cluster.

Lietchi

What kind of food are you talking about?

For whole foods without nutritional labels: the USDA database (Legacy entries) is a good source.

For foods with nutritional labels: always follow the label.

For entire dishes (e.g. lasagna,...):
- if you prepare them yourself, don't use a generic entry from the database, but log the recipe
- if you don't prepare the meal yourself: never choose the lowest, that's just deceiving yourself (the database sometimes has some VERY optimistic (wrong)) food entries. Personally, I look for entries from well-known supermarket chains or restaurant chains. I look at the average and choose something in that range or just above. If it's a restaurant meal, definitely more likely to be a high calorie entry.

petitexphysique

If I genuinely don't know and can't find out, I pick one in the middle. Like I ate a muffins someone made - look up "chocolate muffin" and pick one in the middle and move on.

Fast food/coffee places, I check their website. If it's like a non-chain coffee shop, I pick something similar at starbucks and log that.