Conflicting calories in lentils

lauraannnelson1

Every google search I do tells me lentils, brown, cooked are about 300 calories per cup but every result here (I tried like 6) gives me 460 for 2 cups. o.O I have no idea what to go with. I normally go for the higher estimate but I recently quit losing weight from eating too little and working out too much (I swear!) so I am trying to raise my intake by 200 calories.

DivineChoices

Are there nutrition facts on the packaging?

ETA - try breaking it down by grams instead of cups.

3dogsrunning

Your most accurate measurement of lentils would be dry. I'd also recommend going by weight.

socajam

Every google search I do tells me lentils, brown, cooked are about 300 calories per cup but every result here (I tried like 6) gives me 460 for 2 cups. o.O I have no idea what to go with. I normally go for the higher estimate but I recently quit losing weight from eating too little and working out too much (I swear!) so I am trying to raise my intake by 200 calories.

Lentils are normally measured by 1/4 cup on the packet (dry). Very high in protein and fiber.

1/4 cup black lentils = 170 calories*
1/4 cup green lentils = 180 calories*

*Uncooked. I bought my lentils from Wholefoods - 365 brand

lemurcat12

Searching around most of what I find is consistent with that in MFP -- about 650/cup raw (this would be way more than 1 cup cooked) or 230/cup cooked, so I think the lower estimate is correct here (it's consistent with the USDA, which is where the MFP standard entries, no asterisk, for non branded foods are from, I believe). Are you sure the other entries you are looking at are just lentils and cooked vs. raw?

In any case, I agree with what others have said--you should be measuring the lentils dry if you have them that way and grams (weight) are better than cups.

lauraannnelson1

Thanks guys and I will definitely take more care to measure them dry next time. I just put the bag in my crock pot. But I will assume the super high estimate was for uncooked....:P

lauraannnelson1

Also, I dont have a food scale yet. There are just so many things I need for health and fitness. an HRM, a blender/food processor, small weights, running shoes, dumbbells, the list goes on so...yeah. haha

3dogsrunning

Also, I dont have a food scale yet. There are just so many things I need for health and fitness. an HRM, a blender/food processor, small weights, running shoes, dumbbells, the list goes on so...yeah. haha

A HRM isn't necessary, a lot of those things aren't, but a food scale is probably the most important. It can be pretty inexpensive, I am pretty sure I paid less than $10 for mine.

lauraannnelson1

I definitely want an HRM to accurately calculate my burns but I definitely didn't realize a food scale was only $10. I am kind of intimidated about how to use it for every single ingredient to accurately count calories. Especially since a large part of my diet is giant pots of veggie soup/stew, so that'd be tricky.

As far as the other stuff I literally have 0 fitness shoes and want to run and do definitely need a food processor/blender it will be very helpful to my diet as I am very large part raw vegan right now. (not meaning partially vegan, just partial on the raw, totally vegan, probably about 80/20. So I need it for smoothie as well as sauces and stuff)

Sreneesa

I eat lentils alot.

I get great value lentils and they are 80 calories, 10 grams protein 1/4 dry.