We count food calories, but what about oil?

Eckert7

Hi. I usually cook with canola oil (1 tbsp or less) scrambled eggs, grilled chicken breast and whatnot.
The thing is, especially when I'm eating out of home, I have no idea how much oil was used when cooking those foods.

Do you guys just ignore it, count it, or just eat some calories under your daily goal?

qtgonewild

absolutely i count it.

Eckert7

absolutely i count it.

But how?

qtgonewild

i count it when im at home. in a restaurant setting im assuming that they have accounted for that in the calorie listing. nothing can be 100% accurate because of course different employees cook in different manners. but hey, im doing the best i can. thats all i can do.

cwolfman13

Ummmm....yeah....super calorie dense...cooking oil, butter, all that stuff has a ton of calories....1 measly little Tbsp of olive oil has like 120 calories Use a measuring spoon and log it.

If you're eating out just do the best you can...it's generally accounted for in the calories of that particular meal as listed.

acpgee

absolutely i count it.

But how?

Estimate by how rich or oily it tastes, compared to what you cook at home.

sguterogers

I do try to count it. I put in 1 tsp of oil in a meal if it doesn't seem like much and maybe a tablespoon if it seems like a lot. Yes, sometimes you have no idea and it's probably always more than we think.

jayb0ne

I use like 4-6 sprays of fry-light at 1 calorie per spray.

Out and about I just do the best I can.

inverseofmissy

Oil is pure fat- that's as calorie dense as it gets! Definitely needs to be counted if you want an accurate log. I measure everything out using a measuring spoon for oil or butter EVERY single time, no matter what I'm cooking. I had no idea how much I was using before but now I try to decrease it in recipes and use as little as possible. If I'm cooking for the whole family I enter the total amount of all ingredients used (even cooking oil/butter) as a recipe and figure out how many servings it makes so I will know how many calories are in my portion of the meal. Sometimes I may cook something in butter but it doesn't all get soaked up by the food (like I have a chicken recipe that's sort of oven-fried and there is a lot of butter but half of it stays in the bottom of the pan after you remove the chicken) and in that case I guesstimate on the high end how much actually went into the food I'm eating.

neanderthin

Yup count it, oil is food.

annekka

I leave myself a daily deficit due to that. My school provides lunch and I never know how much oil goes into it. I like to leave myself a couple hundred calories as a deficit to account for the unknown factor. But, you also have to consider I'm living in China, too, so calorie counting enters a whole new dimension.

TribeHokie

Just measure it. If you're saying you use 1 tbsp or less, that means you're using enough to measure....so do it and log it. Simple. and yeah it adds up.

sarah456s

If I make scrambled eggs at home, it goes in my tracker as 2 whole eggs, 1 tbspn of butter (or whatever I used). If someone else makes it, then it goes in as scrambled eggs and I guess on the quantity because that entry has oil or butter accounted for and I don't know exactly how much was used. If I'm at a restaurant, and the scrambled eggs seem greasier than homemade, then I'll select scrambled eggs from a not-so-healthy chain if there's an entry for that, just to be on the safe side. Or, I'll select the generic version and add an extra butter entry.