Newbie question on adding foods/calories

WellsNZ

Hi everyone

Getting stuck in to making this myfitnesspal thing work

My question is, hopefully I've come to the right place, what do I do in situations where I can put in the exact product versus when I can put in the exact way it was cooked. Let me explain that a little better.

I have 2 Frenz - Free Range Eggs - Mixed Grade eggs for breakfast which is in the database, but, I have them poached. Should I be selecting these specific eggs, or should I be selecting Home Made - 2 Poached Eggs, 2 cooked from the database.

Similarly, I eat 2 slices of Molenberg - Original Whole Grains, Oat Bran, Low Gi, (Toast Slice) with butter, should I select that or should I put Toast - Wholemeal With Butter, 2 slice. Obviously I don't want that butter to go unaccounted for.

Appreciate any direction on that

LokiOfAsgard

I normally just use generic egg for all my eggs, I do specify my toast is toasted though. But I honestly don't know if there is much of a difference.

ETA: I also normally add my butter separate, a lot of butters have a lot of different counts and nutrients

errorist

This is a great question. Sometimes I do wonder what it means when, for example, you see a pair of options like 'generic sweet potato' and 'sweet potato, roasted'. Does it mean that some allowance has been made for oil in the roasting tray? Some other entries even specify that they are roasted 'without oil'. Is there any difference between a roasted, unoiled sweet potato, and a raw one, compositionally?

I tend to just put raw foods, and if I add oil, I count that separately. Are there any types of foods (besides wine) that cooking alters substantially?

ftloy

I don't know if this is the "correct" way to do it, but yeah ... I'll choose the item that is closest to what I ate and then add things as needed. For example, 1 Large Egg - Fried may be in the database (it is), but I may have cooked it slightly differently from how a more specific record was entered into the database. So, I'll just add 1 Large Egg - Fried (generic) and then add other items separately that I may have used during the preparation (e.g., butter, olive oil, bacon fat, etc.). I've personally found a lot of variation and "poetic license" with these databases to an extent due to how people prepare their food -- one person's legitimate level teaspoon may not be exactly the same as someone else's eyeballed level teaspoon, so I just go with what *I* do in the kitchen, using the database records as a foundation.

WellsNZ

At present I'm just looking at whichever option equates to the most calories and going with that one, that way worst case I'm accounting for more calories rather than less, seems logical to me but I don't really know what I'm talking about lol so was looking to see how others approach that situation

sanfly

I would be as specific as possible. Molenberg is different to Vogels which is different to Mackenzies which is different to Budget - the difference in a slice of bread can sometimes be 50 cals or more even!

If you want to be really serious, get a food scale too and weigh the butter etc - it surprises me sometimes that my estimates can be way off for such things (both under and over).