New to myfitnesspal and have a conundrum about entering a recipe (serving size)

helenawasilewski
helenawasilewski Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself
hey folks, been using this app for about a month now and have enjoyed it. I do a lot of home cooking (and sometimes baking), and I am not finding a resolution on the help section with respect to adding a recipe. After I “Title” the recipe, it then wants to know how many servings. I would like to be able to put in how many ounces are equal to a “serving”. If it’s something I have as leftovers say, and I am eating a smaller portion, for accuracy - I would like to have an entry by ounces to calculate the proper calories and nutrients. Anyone familiar with this? I have gone round and round trying different ways but no success. Thanks in advance
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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,204 Member
    Well, I use grams rather than ounces to set servings, but yes.

    Here's the thing: MFP doesn't know the weight of your finished food, because cooking changes water weight of the food in most cases. Boiling adds water, roasting can subtract it.

    In order to do what you're wanting, weigh the dish/pan that will eventually hold the finished food. Note that someplace. (Some people here make a list of the weights of dishes/pans they use often, and tape it to the inside of a cabinet door.)

    Then, make your recipes. When it's all done cooking, put the dish back on the scale, now with all the food in it. Note the total weight of food + dish. Subtract the weight of the dish that you noted previously. Now you have the total weight of the food. You can use that to create the serving count.

    Myself, like I said, I weigh in grams, then set the number of servings to the number of grams. Not only does that look crazy - to put in 1432 servings or something like that :D - but MFP gives me a message. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but the gist is "did you really mean that big number?". If I just go on, it adds it that way. Then, when I eat some of the food, I weigh my portion in grams, and log that many of the one-gram servings. MFP has enough details behind the scenes to do the calorie/nutrient math appropriately.

    You could do that same kind of thing with ounces, if you wish. It's just that you have to figure out the total weight of the food, because MFP can't.

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