How do you log your homemade food?
Replies
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If you're batch cooking divide the total amount cooked into smaller one or two portion dishes - eg I made Chilli - when done I divided it up equally into what I considered one portion dishes to freeze - however many pots I ended up with (6 in that case) i divide into the total calories for the dish - giving cals per portion. If you weigh what you consider to be a portion you will never have to do it again as you will know how much to weigh out. My freezer is full of one or two portion margerine tubs of stews, soups, bolognaise and chilli - each tub marked with what a portion weight should be (usually 200g) eg - beef stew 200g=1
EAT it sounds a faff but you only have to do it the first time you cook it - from then on you can add that recipe to your diary easily and accurately
Now that's a good idea - although my recipes change slightly (due to veg availabiliy normally), it's not something that's going to throw it off too much.
The state my bathroom scales are in, I wouldn't want a cookpot anywhere near! :laugh:0 -
An alternative (which I have considered but haven't got round to doing) is to weigh each of your cooking pots and note down to the weights (or even Sharpie them onto the bottom).
Then, when you've finished cooking your dish, weigh it all including the pot and then subtract the weight of the pot.
You can then weigh your portion and work it out as a proportion of the whole.
Does that make any sense?!
(edited for spelling)
It totally makes sense, problem is I cook soups and chilis in such large batches that it's too heavy for my food scale and maxes out. hahahhah.
I estimate serving sizes. I've always estimated them. Actually weighing out servings is a little too over-the-top for me. Most of my recipes feed five (two servings each for me and my husband, two half-servings for my four year old). I take about 1/5th. If I'm feeling really anal, I'll serve up everyone's portions. For soup or chili, sometimes I'll serve up all the dining and leftover containers right away, or I'll look at the pot and guess the servings.
Here's the thing about weighing the final recipe: It's still not 100% accurate. I mean, you add stew meat, carrots, onion, kale, broth, spices, wine, greens, etc to make a stew. But one portion may have more meat than another, or more carrots, even though the scale says they are the same weight. Despite being the same weight, they don't have the precise, same number of calories because the ingredients in each bowl vary slightly.
This is one circumstance where I think close enough is good enough. I can be bothered to weigh ingredients as I add them, and edit recipes on MFP, but I can't be bothered to weigh my cookware, subtract that weight from the total, divide the total into servings, and then weigh each portion. That seems like something I won't do for the rest of my life, so I won't do it now either.At the moment I eyeball. Which is terrible of me, I know. I do a lot of homecooking (most week nights and at least once on the weekend). I have nine pages of recipes, and I tweak each one every time I cook it to make sure the total recipe is correct. And I still have to guess how much of the whole pot is my serving. I'm almost ashamed to call myself a consistent logger!
It's not terrible to eyeball! I aim to not let perfect be the enemy of good, and if you're logging the ingredients pretty precisely, it's not a huge deal to eyeball the portions if you're honest with yourself. That's my method, and it didn't hinder my weight loss nor has it hindered my maintenance. And I have 34 pages of recipes so I obviously employ this method OFTEN.0 -
This. I just do this anytime I make a homemade recipe.Create your own recipe in the database and use that.0 -
Weigh each ingredient before cooking and either enter them all individually, or if it's something I make often and exactly the same, I enter a recipe.
My husband does it for me when he cooks, and when we're eating together we weigh everything and I just log half of it. I even weigh the plates once it's dished up sometimes, to make sure the portions are even :sad:0 -
Recipe builder is great. I just wish MFP would add a way to organize the recipes better into folders or something. my list is pretty big now. I also wish there was a way to edit and save to my own list recipes from the database that I've edited...example, recipe calls for regular cheese and I use reduced fat or leave something out of the recipe entirely. Hopefully they'll continue to improve it and I'll see these options someday.0
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I log everything as individual items in my food diary. I don't log spices though. I mostly ignore serving sizes if I'm logging food items in a recipe as individuals but like everyone said, using the recipe builder is a much better option.0
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I will warn you, if you use the APP......you may not want to use it, when creating a recipe.....lol. The UPC scanner doesn't work too well, and when you hit the back button on your android after hitting "the right food, but has the wrong macros" - you hit the back button, and you then have to "re scan" the bar code of the item to re-search for it......
Complete pain in the behind lol.....9 times out of 10 the product that pops up with the UPC scanner has the wrong macronutrients.....either because the product changed, or someone decided to add it, with lower sodium so that it would fit better into their daily nutrition and not send their sodium/carbs/fat to the negative.....lol.
Just an observation/tip.....
I recently contacted MFP regarding this......there's a lot of duplicates.....wish there was a way for them to "prune" old or outdated products with wrong nutrion info.....since the rating system will not show up on the app to rate an entry good, bad, or "edit" like the site does.0 -
My tip for homemade recipes is to weigh the whole lot at the end and say for example it is 2563grams I input it as 2563 portions and then I weigh out how much I use each time (eg 300 portions = 300g) and my family can have whatever they want. It also means if I am hungrier or have more cals on a day I can have a bigger portion
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I weigh everything raw, and use the entries in the database WITHOUT asterisks (*) whenever possible. Then I enter it into the recipe builder. If it's chili or soup, I'll measure it out by the cup or half-cup into separate containers for freezing or refrigerating. My ideal serving of something like that is usually 1 or 1.5 cups, so I'll measure out mine & my husband's dinner portions into bowls, then put equal amounts into tupperware containers for later. I LOVE the idea of writing the weight of pots and pans on the bottoms- I'm going to start on that this week!
If I'm making something like bread, I usually take the total weight in grams and then weigh the slices as I cut them. It looks sort of funny- a loaf of bread might have 1845 1-gram servings, and then I log, "Bread Machine French Loaf, 50 servings" LOL. Whatever works.0 -
I started weighing my whole meal that I cooked and if the meal weighs 50 oz I say it serves 50 people and then log how many servings by the oz. So last night I had 10 servings of pasta. This makes it easy for me to take leftovers in smaller amounts.0
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I made a batch of homemade taco soup last night. This is going to sound super tedious, but this is what I did. I got a giant bowl, and started scooping the soup out of the pot and into the bowl with a 1 cup measuring cup, counting as I went. Turns out the whole soup had 8 cups, so I divided my recipe into 4 servings, at 2 cups a serving. Tedious I know but.....gotta do what you gotta do!
This is exactly what I do. I just scoop it into whatever i'll be using to store the leftovers. I made lentils last night, there were three cups and I figured 3/4 cup to be a serving. So, 4 servings total.
To the OP, you'll only have to do that once - the recipe will save and if you make it the same way next time, you won't have to do it again. It is kind of time-consuming, but only the first time
What I do is keep a notebook in my kitchen - I write it down (220 g of xyz ingredient, 1 tablespoon abc oil, etc), and then later when I have a few minutes, I sit down and enter it into MFP.0 -
An alternative (which I have considered but haven't got round to doing) is to weigh each of your cooking pots and note down to the weights (or even Sharpie them onto the bottom).
Then, when you've finished cooking your dish, weigh it all including the pot and then subtract the weight of the pot.
You can then weigh your portion and work it out as a proportion of the whole.
Does that make any sense?!
(edited for spelling)
It totally makes sense, problem is I cook soups and chilis in such large batches that it's too heavy for my food scale and maxes out. hahahhah.
I estimate serving sizes. I've always estimated them. Actually weighing out servings is a little too over-the-top for me. Most of my recipes feed five (two servings each for me and my husband, two half-servings for my four year old). I take about 1/5th. If I'm feeling really anal, I'll serve up everyone's portions. For soup or chili, sometimes I'll serve up all the dining and leftover containers right away, or I'll look at the pot and guess the servings.
Here's the thing about weighing the final recipe: It's still not 100% accurate. I mean, you add stew meat, carrots, onion, kale, broth, spices, wine, greens, etc to make a stew. But one portion may have more meat than another, or more carrots, even though the scale says they are the same weight. Despite being the same weight, they don't have the precise, same number of calories because the ingredients in each bowl vary slightly.
This is one circumstance where I think close enough is good enough. I can be bothered to weigh ingredients as I add them, and edit recipes on MFP, but I can't be bothered to weigh my cookware, subtract that weight from the total, divide the total into servings, and then weigh each portion. That seems like something I won't do for the rest of my life, so I won't do it now either.At the moment I eyeball. Which is terrible of me, I know. I do a lot of homecooking (most week nights and at least once on the weekend). I have nine pages of recipes, and I tweak each one every time I cook it to make sure the total recipe is correct. And I still have to guess how much of the whole pot is my serving. I'm almost ashamed to call myself a consistent logger!
It's not terrible to eyeball! I aim to not let perfect be the enemy of good, and if you're logging the ingredients pretty precisely, it's not a huge deal to eyeball the portions if you're honest with yourself. That's my method, and it didn't hinder my weight loss nor has it hindered my maintenance. And I have 34 pages of recipes so I obviously employ this method OFTEN.
All of this...
When I make a recipe like chili or soup - I estimate how many portions are in the whole recipe. Usually something like soup should be 6-8 servings. Then when I dish it up, I give what I consider to be the right serving size to my husband and myself, and a half serving to my kids. Then I look at how much is left after the meal. If I can now divide up the leftovers into three remaining tupperwares - then the chili made 6 servings. If I've only got enough left for 1 tupperware - the chili made 4 servings... OR I enter it that I ate 1.5 servings of the 6 serving portion...
I know a lot of people will cringe at the fact that I'm not weighing everything - but there is always going to be some level of estimation involved in this process. When you eat dinner at a restaurant, or a friends house, you have to give up some level of control on occasion and I think if you are tracking the ingredients correctly when you use the recipe builder, then that is sufficient...0 -
My tip for homemade recipes is to weigh the whole lot at the end and say for example it is 2563grams I input it as 2563 portions and then I weigh out how much I use each time (eg 300 portions = 300g) and my family can have whatever they want. It also means if I am hungrier or have more cals on a day I can have a bigger portion
^^ This is what I do as well. It works pretty well for leftovers. I dont have to worry about how much is left or who ate what. Just weigh what I want to eat and MFP calculations does it automagically.
Thanks,0 -
Create your own recipe in the database and use that.
this...I have 4 pages of recipes.
I win -- 13 pages of recipes!An alternative (which I have considered but haven't got round to doing) is to weigh each of your cooking pots and note down to the weights (or even Sharpie them onto the bottom).
Then, when you've finished cooking your dish, weigh it all including the pot and then subtract the weight of the pot.
You can then weigh your portion and work it out as a proportion of the whole.
Does that make any sense?!
(edited for spelling)
That's actually a really good idea. It involves less dirty pots/bowls/containers than my method.
Usually I keep MFP's recipe builder open as I'm cooking. I tare the pot+food on the scale, scoop out all the food into a large tupperware container or bowl. When I reach the end of the pot, my scale now tells me how many grams of food I had (e.g. 1150g). I divide by 100 and put that many "servings" into MFP (e.g.1150g / 100 = 11.5). Then, whenever I'm hungry, I weigh out 100g, 200g, 243g, whatever amount I want, and can input it easily as 1, 2, or 2.43 servings of my recipe.0 -
If it is soup and you want the serving size to be one cup, how do you know how many cups are in the whole recipe?
I normally weigh the pot before cooking anything in it. When I'm finished making the meal, I add the ingredients into the recipe builder and then weigh the pot again, while it has the soup/meal in it. This is an easy way to find out the total weight of the meal. Then I input the total weight as the amount of servings.
All of my recipes are done this way so that I can say I had 300g of soup instead of guessing how many servings that is. Then my husband, who also tracks, goes to my diary and copies the meal to his (little wrench symbol by the meal).0 -
When I make a recipe like chili or soup - I estimate how many portions are in the whole recipe. Usually something like soup should be 6-8 servings. Then when I dish it up, I give what I consider to be the right serving size to my husband and myself, and a half serving to my kids. Then I look at how much is left after the meal. If I can now divide up the leftovers into three remaining tupperwares - then the chili made 6 servings. If I've only got enough left for 1 tupperware - the chili made 4 servings... OR I enter it that I ate 1.5 servings of the 6 serving portion...
I know a lot of people will cringe at the fact that I'm not weighing everything - but there is always going to be some level of estimation involved in this process. When you eat dinner at a restaurant, or a friends house, you have to give up some level of control on occasion and I think if you are tracking the ingredients correctly when you use the recipe builder, then that is sufficient...
No cringing here. I'm impressed with everyone's scale use for serving calculation, I just don't think it's necessary - especially since the calories per serving will never be exact anyway, because the ingredients in most dishes will be disbursed unevenly throughout. An exception might be a pureed soup or bread or something where each ingredient is quite even through the whole finished portion.
Sometimes good enough is truly good enough. And I mean, if we're getting exact, you think your 100g of beef sirloin has precisely the same calories as my 100g of sirloin? Not a chance. Fat content varies in each piece of meat, even if it's the same cut and weighed perfectly. You think the label on your pasta is 100% correct? Not a chance.
Point is, estimate the best you can. If weighing your finished recipe is something you want to do, go for it.
But my results show me that it's just not necessary.0 -
Using the web app you can import recipes from web pages and amend as necessary. Very useful, even if you are going free style you might be able to find a similar recipe online and adapt.0
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For soup, just measure your bowls so you know how much they hold. By the time you're finished, you'll know how much was in the pot and divide accordingly.
Don't forget that you can edit your recipes, but they won't change what you previously logged. Quite often, I'll go back an edit the portions if they change: This is handy for pancakes since they may pour different: one day I might get 6 thick ones, and another I might get 8 thin ones even though the total recipe is the same. Ditto for having almond milk on hand instead of regular milk.0 -
When I make a recipe like chili or soup - I estimate how many portions are in the whole recipe. Usually something like soup should be 6-8 servings. Then when I dish it up, I give what I consider to be the right serving size to my husband and myself, and a half serving to my kids. Then I look at how much is left after the meal. If I can now divide up the leftovers into three remaining tupperwares - then the chili made 6 servings. If I've only got enough left for 1 tupperware - the chili made 4 servings... OR I enter it that I ate 1.5 servings of the 6 serving portion...
I know a lot of people will cringe at the fact that I'm not weighing everything - but there is always going to be some level of estimation involved in this process. When you eat dinner at a restaurant, or a friends house, you have to give up some level of control on occasion and I think if you are tracking the ingredients correctly when you use the recipe builder, then that is sufficient...
No cringing here. I'm impressed with everyone's scale use for serving calculation, I just don't think it's necessary - especially since the calories per serving will never be exact anyway, because the ingredients in most dishes will be disbursed unevenly throughout. An exception might be a pureed soup or bread or something where each ingredient is quite even through the whole finished portion.
Sometimes good enough is truly good enough. And I mean, if we're getting exact, you think your 100g of beef sirloin has precisely the same calories as my 100g of sirloin? Not a chance. Fat content varies in each piece of meat, even if it's the same cut and weighed perfectly. You think the label on your pasta is 100% correct? Not a chance.
Point is, estimate the best you can. If weighing your finished recipe is something you want to do, go for it.
But my results show me that it's just not necessary.
:drinker:0
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