So, I finally bought a food scale...
KayJaMikel
Posts: 341 Member
And I am confused as to how to log meals.
For instance, I plan to make a crock pot meal with turkey and spices, and then mashed taters, veggies, etc., for me and the whole family (family of 5). How do I log what I will eat? I know this sounds dumb, but say I put 5 tablespoons of butter in the mashed for the entire family, but I only eat a cup of mashed, how much butter am I getting?
I know to weigh the turkey I plan to consume, but what about the spices I use for the whole turkey, or the sauce I use to cook it in?
If I make like a vegetable for all of us using oil and spices and cooking it, but I only eat a 1/2 cup or whatever, how do I log the stuff that went into cooking it for everybody?
I have not used a food scale as of yet, so this is new. Do you all make your own meals to be able to log more accurately?
Are all these little thing too minuscule to even worry about logging?
Do I take a total and divide by 5, even though I will probably eat less than them?
Thanks!!!
For instance, I plan to make a crock pot meal with turkey and spices, and then mashed taters, veggies, etc., for me and the whole family (family of 5). How do I log what I will eat? I know this sounds dumb, but say I put 5 tablespoons of butter in the mashed for the entire family, but I only eat a cup of mashed, how much butter am I getting?
I know to weigh the turkey I plan to consume, but what about the spices I use for the whole turkey, or the sauce I use to cook it in?
If I make like a vegetable for all of us using oil and spices and cooking it, but I only eat a 1/2 cup or whatever, how do I log the stuff that went into cooking it for everybody?
I have not used a food scale as of yet, so this is new. Do you all make your own meals to be able to log more accurately?
Are all these little thing too minuscule to even worry about logging?
Do I take a total and divide by 5, even though I will probably eat less than them?
Thanks!!!
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Replies
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hmm try making recipes for everything you make (believe it's the last or second last tab under the food tab). Use the food scale to weigh how much of what you're putting in your dishes, and set the portions in a way where it's basically divisible by what you'll have of the dish (so you can log 1 portion of it).
I think this will make it much easier for you to count what you're having!
ETA: Don't worry about spices. Log sauces if they're cream or something high cal.
If you're really very concerned about what these things add in, maybe just quick add 100 cals at the end of the day (though I wouldn't bother with that either)0 -
If they are recipes that you make regularly, you can enter them once under Food>Recipes. That page gives you the option of assigning number of servings. So when you log it, you just go to your recipes tab and select that meal.0
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I would set it up under the recipe tab, and give yourself whatever serving you like
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To all, gonna try out the recipe thing, see how that goes. I guess it's pretty much trial and error.0
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I would set it up under the recipe tab, and give yourself whatever serving you like
This! Enter the recipe. I do this for red beans and chicken soup that I have. It's a pain the first time because you do have to measure it out but it's worth it if it is something you keep making.0 -
I just asked this same question yesterday so we're in the same boat! There is a "Recipe Builder" under Apps on here that you can use. Check it out. I'm still learning too but hopefully that helps you.
And someone please correct me if I'm wrong but put in all of your ingredients, weighing each one. List them in the Recipe Builder. When your meal is done weigh the entire thing. Divide it by how many portions you want and enter that info into the recipe builder too. At least that's what I think from checking it out myself. Love to hear more from other people too. 0 -
I would decide how much you want to eat of the whole. You said 1/5 was probably too much, so maybe 1/6 or 1/8 of the recipe. You can use the recipe tool on this site, add all the ingredients, then choose how many servings you want it to make. If you want to eat 1/8 of the whole use 8 servings. When you dish up, you can either eyeball 1/8 of the total, or weigh the total dish, divide by 8, and weigh out that much for you. When you go to log, you will choose 1 serving for yourself.0
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so it all depends, and the quality of your tracking rigor will come down to personal views on data management.
The method I take, is I know what goes into every dish. I then weigh the overall, take what I want, look at the amount I took to find out what percent of the whole it is, and that's the amount of calories I just took.
super simple, just requires you to know what you put in.
Another option is, if you know the entire item will be consumed, and that it will be done in equal servings, just take that proportion and log it, no needing to actually weigh what you took, assuming you know it's equal and consistent portioning. (This method has a decent chance of variability or error.)0 -
I try to log the whole meal for all people, then split calories as to how much I eat, eg 1/4 or 1/5 of the whole and note it.0
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This is going to sound more complicated than it actually is but bare with me. I'm going to give a "making dinner for peeps example."
If I am making mashed potatoes for people, I will get my scale (which has a tare feature), put one ingredient in the bowl, note the grams it has, then tare it out and put another ingredient in the bowl, tare it out, etc. Doesn't take long. Spices and stuff I don't bother with unless it states it has calories.
From here, put it in the recipe finder and note how many grams per serving it is. So if I made mashed potatoes that weighed 500g total, but I want it to be two servings, one serving size would be 250g. Say though you only had 213g. You would do simple math to determine your serving size. (213 / 250 = .852 serving size), which is what you would record in your diary.
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Spices are not really something you should worry about calories unless it states it has calories, I guess and example would be raw cocoa powder, it is really low in calories but it has calories. The exception I guess would be salt if you are in a health concern where you would need to watch your salt intake.
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Oils, this is easy (for me). Pam spray where you barely coat the cooking pot, I don't bother, but don't drench the thing either!
For things like olive oil and asparagus with salt and pepper. I put the asparagus on the scale, tare it out to zero, then I take them off for a sec to properly coat them in oil (I do it with my hands is why I take them off). Then just put them back on and the new number will be the added weight of oil, which you would measure.
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Sauces and stuff you cook in, I would just include it in your recipe and do the serving thing as said before, it won't be exact (since sometimes you may get more meat thank chicken in a scoop and vise verse), but it won't be so far off that it will hurt you either.
For gravy you put on after, just measure it like you would anything else.
It sounds complicated, but the tare feature in scales now makes everything take a grand two seconds extra to weigh out.0 -
I total the calories for the entire meal before I divide it up. So if my casserole has 2000 total calories and I'm going to eat 1/4th of it, then I estimate my portion at about 500 calories. This is of course approximate, but it works really well for me!0
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bump0
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This took me awhile to figure out, especially things like soups and chile without nutrition info. Because soups evaporate and other foods loose weight when cooked.
What I've started doing is to weigh or measure each ingredient that goes in the pot. Than, with a 15 pound scale, I can weigh the total pot after cooking. Divide up and get calories per ounce or whatever. Then, measure your desired serving.0 -
I think about this too. It seems like so much calculating.
I guess I would find out the nutri info of each veggie and large ingredient, find out how many I'm using, and then calcualte how much I am going to be eating of it. Unless your family wants to know what they are consuming, I would assume you are calculating your own intake only, right?
Now, a recipe like paella or lasagna would probably be complicated, yet still calculable.0 -
Reecipe Builder? That's awesome!!!0
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I like your solution best! It's not as complicated!0
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Okay, will be working on it.
Now, I have another question.
I eat this snack food where there is an entry that allows you to put cups/half cups, but no grams or ounces.
I tried entering my own entry so i could specify grams or ounces, but it doesn't let me.
How do you specify grams or ounces, rather than cups?
I have looked all over the food area, and I cannot seem to find any way to do that.0 -
This is going to sound more complicated than it actually is but bare with me. I'm going to give a "making dinner for peeps example."
If I am making mashed potatoes for people, I will get my scale (which has a tare feature), put one ingredient in the bowl, note the grams it has, then tare it out and put another ingredient in the bowl, tare it out, etc. Doesn't take long. Spices and stuff I don't bother with unless it states it has calories.
From here, put it in the recipe finder and note how many grams per serving it is. So if I made mashed potatoes that weighed 500g total, but I want it to be two servings, one serving size would be 250g. Say though you only had 213g. You would do simple math to determine your serving size. (213 / 250 = .852 serving size), which is what you would record in your diary.
----
Spices are not really something you should worry about calories unless it states it has calories, I guess and example would be raw cocoa powder, it is really low in calories but it has calories. The exception I guess would be salt if you are in a health concern where you would need to watch your salt intake.
----
Oils, this is easy (for me). Pam spray where you barely coat the cooking pot, I don't bother, but don't drench the thing either!
For things like olive oil and asparagus with salt and pepper. I put the asparagus on the scale, tare it out to zero, then I take them off for a sec to properly coat them in oil (I do it with my hands is why I take them off). Then just put them back on and the new number will be the added weight of oil, which you would measure.
----
Sauces and stuff you cook in, I would just include it in your recipe and do the serving thing as said before, it won't be exact (since sometimes you may get more meat thank chicken in a scoop and vise verse), but it won't be so far off that it will hurt you either.
For gravy you put on after, just measure it like you would anything else.
It sounds complicated, but the tare feature in scales now makes everything take a grand two seconds extra to weigh out.
Stupid me bought one without a TARE feature, even though when I was shopping, I was looking to buy one with a TARE feature. I guess I saw a button there and thought it said TARE. This one has mode and on and off.
But it seems to reset if I remove the tiny little plastic bowl it came with. if i take the bowl off, it goes - in weight, weird, so it somehow adjusted for the bowl weight.0 -
bump0
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Pretty much the same as the other posters- enter all measured ingredients into the recipe builder and divide by how many servings you want it to be. You can play around with it to check it out. I saw that others don't enter their spices or oils. I enter everything that goes into the recipe. I want mine to be as accurate as possible.
I try to keep my salt down but it doesn't always happen. When entering ground black pepper into my chili recipe I noticed it has a lot more calories and carbs than I thought! One teaspoon (6g) is 16 calories and 4 carbs. We are pepper lovers at my house and use a LOT more than a teaspoon in recipes. BTW - I watch my carbs cuz I have T2 diabetes.0 -
You can put it in the name. Either whatever you want your serving weight to be, or 100g for simplicity of future logging0
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You can put it in the name. Either whatever you want your serving weight to be, or 100g for simplicity of future logging
I don't understand.
Oy vey, I am so confuzzled.0 -
Use the recipe builder. Use the food scale to weigh out everything that is going into the recipe...then determine how many servings the recipe is going to be...I generally did this buy weighing out the entire pot of whatever and then dividing that number by how many servings I thought it should legitimately make...and then I weighed out those servings.
It's a bit tedious at first, but once you have recipes in your builder it's not a big deal...I ended up with about 5 pages of recipes in my recipe builder.0 -
You can put it in the name. Either whatever you want your serving weight to be, or 100g for simplicity of future logging
I don't understand.
Oy vey, I am so confuzzled.
If an entire recipe weighs 500 grams and serves 5...then one serving would be 100 grams of the casserole or whatever. So when you name your recipe you would put JoeShmoes Hamburger Casserole 100 grams (to remind you to weigh out 100 grams for your serving of that particular recipe).0 -
I think it's fundamentally flawed anyway.
Say you make a stir fry or casserole...
OK you weigh all the meat, vegetables, whatever and log it into the recipe....
Fine so far.... OK then you say well I'm going to eat 1/4 of the dish.... And you log that into your daily diary.... OK, that sounds great....
But heres the thing..... Even if you accurately weigh out exactly 25% of the casserole ( or whatever the dish is).... There is NO POSSIBLE WAY of calculating what calories, or nutrition was in that portion....
You might weigh out a quarter of the caserole (for example) that contains say 8 chunks of meat, 5 chunks of carrot, and 3 chunks of potato....
Or you might weigh out a quarter of the casserole that contained 5 chunks of meat, 10 chunks of carrot, 8 chunks of potato....
....OK both portions might weigh exactly the same.... But the calorie content and nutrition is going to be very different.
....even If you counted out the chunks of meat, veg, etc... Its still far from accurate unless you take the time to weigh every single piece of everything that you put in, and make sure they are all identical.... And then did exactly the same for every other ingredient you used.... And then counted them all up to create entirely equal portions...
....even if you went to all the effort to do that.... Guess what.... Piece of meat, potato, etc tend to break up into smaller pieces when cooked in a casserole, making it virtually impossible to portion out equally.
.....I know I keep using the example of a casserole, but I'm sure you get my general point, and see how it could apply to virtually any recipe you were to create...0 -
Someone shared a tip on the boards a couple of weeks ago and I have started doing this. Instead of saying my meal is 1400g and then dividing into portions like 6 or 8, I go by 100 grams so 1400 is 14 servings. I ate 300g, so 3 servings. This isn't as important during the meal if the entire thing is eaten but for me it's about the leftovers. I could have 3 or 4 recipes in the fridge and to remember this was 250/serving and this 185/serving is harder to remember. Now all my recipes are done by 100, so I know on each thing. I've really liked this change in the last few weeks. Good luck!0
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You can put it in the name. Either whatever you want your serving weight to be, or 100g for simplicity of future logging
I don't understand.
Oy vey, I am so confuzzled.
If an entire recipe weighs 500 grams and serves 5...then one serving would be 100 grams of the casserole or whatever. So when you name your recipe you would put JoeShmoes Hamburger Casserole 100 grams (to remind you to weigh out 100 grams for your serving of that particular recipe).
I think i figured it out. Thank you. Way more calories than I thought, geesh louise. Guess I needed this scale.0 -
I don't know, think for now, until I am better at weighing and logging by actual weight than guesstimating, I may just make/eat meals for myself and then for them.
I will of course have some turkey though. Will try to keep anything I use to cook turkey in crock pot negligible as far as calories. Will have a few weighed sliced of turkey and salad.0 -
Thank you very much everybody. I really appreciate all the help.0
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Okay, will be working on it.
Now, I have another question.
I eat this snack food where there is an entry that allows you to put cups/half cups, but no grams or ounces.
I tried entering my own entry so i could specify grams or ounces, but it doesn't let me.
How do you specify grams or ounces, rather than cups?
I have looked all over the food area, and I cannot seem to find any way to do that.
Usually on the label, it will say serving size 1/2 cup (xxx grams). What I do is weigh out the grams, but when I log it, I log 1/2 cup.0
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