Different calories for the same product. Which one should I take in consideration to Log?

jlbl74

Hello dear Fitness Pals:

I hope everybody is doing great.

I have a question. My question is about logging calories or logging foods. I've noticed that for the same type of food there can be different "scaling" methods. I'm going to use as a specific example the "Blueberry Power Cakes Flapjack & Waffle mix" from the brand Kodiak. Ok, so today while preparing my pancakes I used 3/4 cup of pancake mix, and mixed it with 4 ounces of water and 4 ounces of fat free lactose free milk.

After cooking the pancakes I weighted all of them at once and (three pancakes) equalled 8.01 ounces.

Now, IF I search for "Blueberry power cakes Flapjack & Waffle mix" Kodiak, and log it as 1 ounce x 8 (equalling) 8 ounces it tells me that I consummed 830 calories approximately.

However, if I enter the food as 1 cup about 3/4. It tells me that I consumed 236 calories.

So I am confussed. Which of them should I consider???


Thank you in advance for helping.

Retroguy2000

Neither. Checking the site for nutrition info, the instructions say to make it with water. You used milk.

What you should do is enter the pancake max in cups, 190 cals for 0.5 cups, so you're at 285 so far, and enter anything else you add to it such as milk or syrup or spread, then save the whole thing as a meal for easy use next time.

e.g. I have "Pancakes (3) with protein powder" meal, which is from making a meal with 2 cups pancake mix + 1 cup milk + 2 scoops protein powder + water, which amounts to 3 meals total so my MFP meal is 1/3rd of each of those. For me, that's about 400 calories and 24g protein before the yogurt based spread I use (which I also estimate in MFP).

EDIT: and if MFP has old or incorrect info for the nutrition for the item, you can correct that and save it for public use to the database.

AnnPT77

Basically what Retro said up there, but I'd use a food scale. More accurate, and doesn't require the measuring cups.

In general, don't use other people's database entries for anything multi-ingredient, or even with variable cooking options. "Ham Sandwich"? Was it mayo, mustard or neither - up to a couple of hundred calories difference. "Meat lasagna" - don't even get me started on the variability in there, especially if the serving size is something like "1 piece". Even "fried eggs: How much oil, if any?

Use your own individual ingredients, use a food scale, and learn the tips that make a scale easier and quicker, not just more accurate.

Example tip: Peanut butter, put the open jar on the scale, zero/tare the scale, take out a reasonable-looking blob with the knife, read the negative number on the scale. That's how many grams you took out with your knife. Log that number of grams. Works for things in jars/bottles, hunks of cheese, anything you cut off a hunk of to eat, or scoop/squirt/pour out a serving.