Tracking the calories of someone elses food

whalenmich7295
whalenmich7295 Posts: 21 Member
edited September 22 in Food and Nutrition
Hey everyone -

Here is a problem I had two days ago. The girlfriend made dinner. rice, sausage, guac, and tamales (a mexican thing that is rolled in a corn husk and steamed). anyways it has been my goto when I am not sure of someone else food to go the database on "MFP", and find a homemade version of whatever it is I ate.

However after a slightly long research i found something alarming. The homemade tamales range from 100-300/each! But if we are shooting to be accurate, what is the best way to do this. Obviously this will be based on what is in the food (cheese, pork, etc).... But overall what is a honest way of tracking these calories?

Replies

  • bethvandenberg
    bethvandenberg Posts: 1,496 Member
    I made tamales yesterday. I made red chili pork (232) and green chili chicken (192) I plugged in the numbers into the data base..

    It's hard to figure out so generally I put all ingrediants into the recipe thingy and then calculate. Since I made 14 doz of each it was quite a huge number before I programed in the servings. lol.

    I think that you're doing it the right way. Finding the home made option etc.

    Hang in there.
  • mem50
    mem50 Posts: 1,384 Member
    Yup, that's what I do. I go to my foods and put in the ingredients of whatever it is I am making and let the site do the calculating for me. Had to do that with several foods so far. Makes it easier for me to figure out the calories. One was for a chicken salad. The data base was saying like 400 calories. When I put in my recipe it came to only 166. I don't put all the stuff in others do I guess.

    So like bethvandenberg says just remember to put in the correct serving amount and you'll do just fine.

    Hugs and all my best.
  • kendradl
    kendradl Posts: 595 Member
    I do the same thing as I bake/cook a lot of things and my homemade recipe may be different from your homemade recipe I enter my calories from my recipe that I use. I don't get along with the recipe option here so I have a website where I enter in a recipe and it gives me the nutritional info for that recipe I then plug that info into the add a food option and done. The website is http://caloriecount.about.com/ go to foods and then recipe analyzer. Good Luck and hope this helps you out. :)
  • DawnOf1969
    DawnOf1969 Posts: 726 Member
    If you are logging something someone else made and can't just enter the ingredients in a recipe calculator because you might not know the ingredients, then I usually just look at all my options and choose one that is in the middle. So in your case, if you're not sure, I would find a homemade tamale that was in the 200 cal range and take the average.
  • orange_avocado
    orange_avocado Posts: 232
    Honestly, some times you just have to guess and go with it. Like Beth said, if you know all the ingredients, then manually entering the recipe is the best way to go. (For instance, I snoop around in the kitchen whenever my BF cooks so I can see exactly how much of everything he adds. Then he gets annoyed when I yell at him for just dumping in some soy sauce instead of measuring - "Don't you know how much sodium that is?!?!".... but I digress :bigsmile: )

    Other than that, go for the homemade option - I usually select the highest calorie because I think overestimating is better than under. It's not a perfect science, but what is?
  • mamacremers
    mamacremers Posts: 183 Member
    You can enter the recipe on here and it calculates the calories for you. It's the recipes tab under the food page. very easy to do and a great help!
  • mamacremers
    mamacremers Posts: 183 Member
    I do the same thing as I bake/cook a lot of things and my homemade recipe may be different from your homemade recipe I enter my calories from my recipe that I use. I don't get along with the recipe option here so I have a website where I enter in a recipe and it gives me the nutritional info for that recipe I then plug that info into the add a food option and done. The website is http://caloriecount.about.com/ go to foods and then recipe analyzer. Good Luck and hope this helps you out. :)

    sparkrecipes.com is another good one that has a counter.
  • Katherine912
    Katherine912 Posts: 42 Member
    Found out what exactly is in the recipe and enter it into the recipe tool under "food" on MFP. It allows you to include all of the ingredients. So, if she made 10 tamales, put the serving as 10 and it will tell you how many calories are in one tamale. Once I discovered this tool, I can't stop using it!
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