Tracking nutrition information at a Chinese buffet

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PrincessTinyheart
PrincessTinyheart Posts: 679 Member
edited February 22 in Food and Nutrition
I'm a vegetarian and there is a buffet that I really like because they have a lot of veggie dishes (Buddhist delight, mushrooms, green beans, steamed broccoli). I fill up on these dishes, no rice, no dessert except orange slices and pineapple.

How can I be sure I am tracking the nutrition information correctly? It's a mom and pop buffet, not a chain restaurant, so of course there's not a website I can reference. I'm most concerned about the sodium content because since I've started using MFP I have realized that I'm consuming far more than I originally thought. Do any of you eat at independent restaurants and have problems estimating this stuff?

Replies

  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
    You cannot track it accurately. The best you can do is estimate, which will still be wildly inaccurate.
  • mom2aeris
    mom2aeris Posts: 98 Member
    You can always ask the people to tell you what is in the dishes, and if they use salt or msg, but in general, you've just got to guesstimate.
  • JossFit
    JossFit Posts: 588 Member
    You cannot track it accurately. The best you can do is estimate, which will still be wildly inaccurate.

    Pretty much.

    If you are really focusing on losing weight I would suggest you save the buffet for a "cheat" meal or avoid it until you've progressed a bit further.
  • segovm
    segovm Posts: 512 Member
    Not sure if it will help but you might be able to find a similar dish published and use that - I went to a hole in the wall BBQ place with the wife and in-laws and obviously nothing there was listed but I just borrowed listings from a big chain, Famous Dave's in this case, to get a ballpark.

    Most of us like to imagine that there is some real science behind all these numbers but they are dish for dish even if properly reported going to vary by 25% at best between servings.

    I think we can all reasonably agree that a favorite buffett is probably not going to be the best place to go for weight loss though. My BBQ trip with the in-laws netted me over 2000 calories (more than I eat in a normal day) so while they might have a time and place in our lives, discretion is the better part of valor.
  • kaseyr1505
    kaseyr1505 Posts: 624 Member
    When I'm not sure how many calories something is, I look up a similar item and add 10% (because I can't measure it).
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