Anyone else shunning homemade food due to calorie confusion?

goldhammer

Ya, Lunamare. Plus you'll be surprised how big a half cup of frozen yogurt is!!! Tip here, try Chapman's, the rocky road is very good and he 97% fat free vanilla is too and way fewer calories than ice cream and alot less fat (D'oh). The thing about ice cream is that unless it is the good stuff it's not worth it and the good stuff is made with CREAM!!!

weather_nerd

Homemade food is much more healthier.

Honestly, I would rather eat homemade butter than a "low calorie" frozen meal that is packed with preservatives and sodium.

shipleyd

I also noticed that I can edit the recipe builder on both my iPhone and iPad, just not online. Love the recipe builder and use it ALL the time.

DeliriumCanBeFun

I avoid bar code items as much as possible anyway and have always cooked at home a lot for health and financial reasons. But the one bad thing with using MFP and counting calories for me is that I'm more apprehensive to eat at local or smaller restaurants than I am at bigger franchise ones that have websites with the nutritional counts listed. I don't eat out much, but I love that so many places are even starting to put calorie and nutrition counts on their menus. So many items that seem healthy can actually be way higher in calories than you would think.

PippiNe

I think OP means when other people make the food... In that case I am a little hesitant to indulge because I don't usually have all the info. I just practice moderation and use my best judgement when logging it. As for my own homemade food, I use the recipe builder with no problems.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read the original post. There are many times when I'd like to have eaten a homemade treat but opted for something I could log more accurately. It seems silly, but for me, that uncertainty can throw off an entire day of eating. Too much of a perfectionist I guess. That said, if I do eat something I do not have the nutrition facts on, I consider the source (does the person who made it eat healthy?) and try my best to guess what went into it.

christmre

I actually prefer homemade food, as I can measure ingredients and know they are accurate. It has been shown that the prepackaged foods are often wrong on calories counts up to 100-200 calories per meal. They also have a lot of preservatives, artificial dyes, and high sodium counts.

mailroomclerk

I hear you but hear me!

Stay with MFP, pay close attention to serving measurements and track all your foods (building recipes on here helps as well). After a while you will develop a psychic power that can eyeball calories pretty damn close.

One day you'll be at a school fair and go, well I know a pack of jelly belly's has about 200 a pack and fits into 1 cup. That jar looks like it holds about 6 cups so I bet it has around 1,200 in it... When you win the estimate you can enjoy your jelly beans by having what fits in your daily allowance then throw the rest out and watch the children cry.

It's got it's perks




But for real, the more you become a nutrition wizard the more home cooked meals you will eat. I'm talking raising cattle and milking cows every morning for your wheat grass cereal, just kidding. But making your own lunch (tailored to your specific needs) is a realllly good habit if it's an option available to you with work or what not.
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DeliriumCanBeFun

I also noticed that I can edit the recipe builder on both my iPhone and iPad, just not online. Love the recipe builder and use it ALL the time.

And this is exactly why the site and the app are each better for certain things. I find it easier to use the site when I'm first building a recipe. I use my laptop right there in the kitchen while I'm cooking to save time. But using the app on my BB allows me to edit ingredients easily.

aribugg

wow.. i didnt even know there was a recipe builder O.o (havent been here long enough i guess lol)
Things just got a lot easier for me! I was doing the same, avoiding cooked meals or just making simple things.

alyjb1121

Plus making it homemade leaves out many preservatives! Like homade coffee creamer versus store bought, i noticed a huge difference.

venus_blue

I know how you feel. Even though the recipe builder is available, it's extremely time-consuming to enter in a new recipe AND figure out how many servings it makes, the latter being even more difficult when it's some kind of one-pot dish or similar. It really constrains cooking and I find myself eating more prepackaged foods and making simpler recipes. But such is eating healthy.

For one-pot meals, weigh out what you "think" a serving should be, and eat it. Then portion out the remainder into other containers. You suddenly have your number of servings counted out easily...

I used to do this, then I hit on the idea to weigh all of my cooking pans and dishes, mixing bowls and so on and write down the weights for future reference. To save even more time and frustration, I recently I wrote the weights on the bottom of everything with a marker that is made for metal and glass. Weigh the pan/dish with the food in, subtract the weight of the dish and divide by the number of servings.

ShannonMpls

Opposite. Healthy eating to me means home-prepared meals whenever possible; in 1000+ days of MFP, I've never once logged a Lean Cuisine or frozen burrito. I have literally hundreds of recipes saved in my MFP recipe builder. I create new ones when I make something new, edit old ones when it's a repeat. It's slightly more time-consuming but it's not bad at all.

jacques57

Not to be redundant and say the same thing, but homemade is the way to go. Sure packaged foods are more convenient, but the cons of prefabricated foods outweigh the concenience. Homemade is the way to go, as most posters here have said. I would only add that as a busy dad with a full-time career and 4 children, I always had time to grow some vegetables in small raised beds. Eating your own produce (beet greens, snap peas, lettuce, pole beans, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, asparagus) is not only delicious and good for you, but immensely satisfying. Just like learning to cook for yourself! ANd the produce or results of your cooking can make great gifts to the neighbors as well.

Redheadllena

You can enter your recipes on MFP. Just make sure to measure and weigh (if possible, this is a better way than measuring!) the ingredients! You can still get the nutritional info this way, just takes a small bit of effort on your part. But you can eat so much more this way, and so much better imo

caroldavison332

according to EAT THIS NOT THAT, it costs TWICE THE MONEY AND CALORIES to eat out, and presumably purchase processed food. Also restaurants, and presumably manufacturers, add 27 ingredients to the same meatloaf that you would make at home with only 5 ingredients. I don't want artificial color, flavor, preservatives, etc so I make my own.

When I make my own I use healthier ingredients like oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs; replace half the spaghetti sauce meat with beans; and add a pound of kale to everything to make it healther. You can barely taste the kale.

Because I replace calorie rich meat with beans I know that my food is less caloric and more nutritious than anything listed, so if I want to save time and just use the same homemade butternut squash soup protein, fat and carb levels that are listed in MFP I feel free to do so.

Also, the longer I am on my fitness journey, and the more I learn the impact of malnutrition on my long term health, and facts like you have to run 3 miles to burn off a cookie, the less I want salt, sugar, fat, etc.

kiekie33

I actually cook more now that I've started my weight loss journey. I can have all the woods that I would have gotten at a take out place or restaurant with a lot les calories. I've gotten pretty adventurous with my cooking I love trying new recipes. I've been eating really well preparing things myself.

marianneread

For those questioning how to determine portions, I actually use the recipe builder to help me determine an appropriate portion. I put in the recipe and a reasonable guess at how many I think the recipe should serve. If the calories come out too high/low, I adjust the number until it's reasonably close to the number of calories I think are appropriate for that meal. So if I start with 4 servings and that's 600 calories per serving, which is more calories than I want to 'spend', I'd change it to 6 servings to get to 400 calories, which is more reasonable for me. Then I divide the completed food into six servings. If that isn't enough food I add some veggies on the side or use the bigger, higher calorie portion size for an occasional splurge.

auddii

Remember the FDA allows frozen diet meals (any meal or thing really) to be 20% off in calorie count. So that 300 calorie meal..could really be 360. You do that a few times a day..you could overshoot your calories for the day and never know. I often wonder if that is why so many on here have trouble losing.

So.. I find restaurant food and prepared foods what really throw most of our counts off.

Interesting, could you cite that anywhere?

From the FDA:

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/labelingnutrition/ucm063113.htm

MsKeelah919

I eat more home cooked food. I bought a nice inexpensive food scale and measuring cups and spoons and I weigh everything that I eat. It's time consuming, but my goals are worth it. Besides, the sodium content is so HIGH in prepared foods... And I like to know every ingredient that I am consuming.

seltzermint555

I agree with others...use the Recipe Builder! I didn't for months after joining MFP, but started using it later and love it now! If you're concerned about portion sizes measure and/or weigh them, too.

I thought maybe this was more about homemade food that others have made, so you are not sure WHAT is in it or how it's cooked...I do shy away from that SOMEWHAT but I don't think it is a serious issue unless you're eating with others several times per week and really have zero idea of how they cook, if they're using butter, lard, canola spray, etc...