help with tracking calories of homemade food

prayinglifefan
prayinglifefan Posts: 3
in Food and Nutrition
How do you keep track of calories in a serving of a homemade recipe?

Replies

  • SmartAlec03211988
    SmartAlec03211988 Posts: 1,896 Member
    Use the recipe builder on here.
  • vvvalentines
    vvvalentines Posts: 151
    Buy a food scale ($20 on Amazon, give or take) and weigh your ingredients as you add them. Then, go to the "food" tab and then "recipes" and enter your recipe ingredients and how many servings it makes. That way, next time you can just use the pre-made recipe instead of entering every ingredient every time.
  • Mr_Starr
    Mr_Starr Posts: 139 Member
    I also had the same question when I first started wanting to keep track of my diet. So I googled my question and that is how i found MFP. I found that at the top of the search results folks were asking the same question in the MFP forums and there many helpful responses.

    Use the recipe builder.

    My wife and I cook almost everything from scratch and I adding more and more recipes to my recipe builder. It was a bit tedious at first, but it starts getting easier. And it is much better than trying to guess what you get for prepared foods from restaurants.

    ... Get a good scale with a large readout and measure everything! You need to be accurate as possible. Most especially cooking oils as they are so calorie dense. Remember to also include the small items like spices.

    ... A smart phone helps. Sometimes when i am cooking I am in a rush and don't want to write everything down. So i just take pictures of the items on the scale.

    .... I also take pictures, or otherwise keep a tally of large packages of meat or bulk foods when I buy them, and then if i forget to weigh them while I or my wife are cooking, I can weigh them immediately after.

    .... For cooked meat MFP does have the calories for after you broil, bake, or roast it. So that helps a lot to.

    .... Make your best guess for serving size and don't be afraid to change your recipe and go back and change the last few days. I just had a pleasant surprise where I guessed something was going to be 4 servings, and it ended up being 6 servings. So I went back to my diary and deleted the prior entry and added the updated recipe. LOL -- few calories... Yeah!

    ... for searching for basic items to add to your recipe like carrots add "USDA" to your search term. That narrows down the search results a lot, and they are usually more accurate.

    The only downside I have seen is if you fry things in a LOT of oil. But this not our cooking style so we have not had to worry about it.
  • Mr_Starr
    Mr_Starr Posts: 139 Member
    . oops multiple entry....
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

    That's a really handy tool, if you're using recipes you have online or otherwise in electronic form. You can just paste it in and hit 'analyze' and it gives you the calories.
  • chezjuan
    chezjuan Posts: 747 Member
    Buy a food scale ($20 on Amazon, give or take) and weigh your ingredients as you add them. Then, go to the "food" tab and then "recipes" and enter your recipe ingredients and how many servings it makes. That way, next time you can just use the pre-made recipe instead of entering every ingredient every time.

    This.
    Also, I weigh the entire batch once I finish cooking it and calculate how many grams are in a serving (or sometimes weigh the dish, then weigh a serving, and calculate how many servings the recipe makes), then I weigh out the portions each time. For example, I make Chili that serves about 6, so once I finish cooking it, I put the serving dish on the scale, zero it out, then pour the chili into the dish. If it weighs, say, 600g, I will then weigh out 100g for each serving.

    Some people will weigh the entire batch and enter the amount in grams as the number of servings, then they can eat as much or as little as they like and get an accurate calorie count by entering the weight of their portion as the number of servings eaten. So, using the example above, I would enter 600 as the number of servings of the recipe, then I would enter that I ate 100 servings if I had 100g.
  • zensugi
    zensugi Posts: 76
    I don't create my own recipes but find a 'close enough" food/recipe in MFP or choose a recipe in internet which comes with calorie/macros count. I figured out that calorie content/burning for both food and exercise is very approximate, so I don't care enough to put much effort on this.

    I see my calorie tracking as a way of *being aware* of how much food I eat and how much exercise I do, and as a tool to support good eating habits, rather than as being obsessed about. So far it is working for me.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Like people said, use the recipe builder. The main issue often is figuring out how many servings and how big a serving is. You have to weigh all your food after it's cooked to figure it out half the time... My husband is making chili tomorrow and I'm going to ask him to see how many bowls it makes. Real pain but I guess you have to do it if you want to be accurate...
  • prayinglifefan
    prayinglifefan Posts: 3
    Is recipe builder the same program as recipe calculator?
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Yes.
  • Ozzzy66
    Ozzzy66 Posts: 36 Member
    Like others have said use a scale. I weigh the serving dish and zero out the scale. I then add up all the calories in the dish. When I have finished cooking I weigh the finished product in the serving dish and divided the calories by the weight. Lastly I weigh out what I want as serving and multiply to find calories in that serving.

Categories