Estimating the number of calories for food without nutrition

ruhimaach

We do a lot of Indian cooking at home. A lot of ingredients don't come with Nutrition Information on the bag/jar. The MFP Database usually has some similar food matches and I usually go with those. I also utilize the Recipe Builder to manually add ingredients and then come up with calories per serving. However, on days like today when I know I'll be eating food without knowing the EXACT calories, what should I do? Should I leave some buffer calories in my food diary?

For dinner tonight, my husband is gonna make a dish that I've always loved. It's made using yellow split peas, yoghurt, some spices, cilantro, onions & small crusts made of flour. The crusts are deep fried in oil. We don't make the crusts at home- just buy from the store. I love this dish and really want to eat it for dinner. If I don't eat it, I'm sure my husband will also feel really bad for me. I looked up the nutrition info on MFP for those crusts and it's supposedly 25 calories per crust. More calories per crust will be added once we fill it with the split peas, yoghurt etc. What do I do- Still eat, but eat less? (Might not be very filling). OR Not eat at all?

melsinct

Why don't you use the "Recipe Tool" and find out the exact nutrition for your homemade foods? That tool is the best part of this website for me because I am an avid home cook.

Edited to add: if you are buying those crusts already prepared, does it have a label on it with the calories?

pitterpat4353

I say eat a small amount of the food you love. Can you "pre-eat" a large low calorie salad or something so that your favorite meal in a smaller portion will be more filling. Or you can always do an awesome workout to burn those calories off either before or after you eat. The important thing is that you are not totally depriving yourself otherwise you will not be happy.

sojojoshua

I do hav ur same problem.. I usually calculate the calories in each and every ingredient...addd it up. when the curry is finally done, I will weight it on my kitchen scale... for eg: if the moong dal curry weighs 1 kg and the calories of all the ingredients that went into it totals to 1000 0(for eg...).. then it becomes easy... I weigh the curry Iam going to eat and if it is 250 gm... then my calorie intake is 10000/250.... hope it helps... the calories for each ingredient can be googled.... (it will be on the higher side coz water doesnt have calories..but still...an approximation...

ruhimaach

Why don't you use the "Recipe Tool" and find out the exact nutrition for your homemade foods? That tool is the best part of this website for me because I am an avid home cook.

Edited to add: if you are buying those crusts already prepared, does it have a label on it with the calories?

Yes, I am going to try use the "Recipe Tool" to figure out the calories. But since the bag of crusts doesn't come with any nutrition information, I don't know if using 25 calories is correct. Lately, this has been happening with me a lot. I wonder if I need to stop eating food without nutrition information altogether.

ruhimaach

I say eat a small amount of the food you love. Can you "pre-eat" a large low calorie salad or something so that your favorite meal in a smaller portion will be more filling. Or you can always do an awesome workout to burn those calories off either before or after you eat. The important thing is that you are not totally depriving yourself otherwise you will not be happy.

Those are great ideas! I think I can eat some low calorie food in order to fill me up and then eat a small serving of this delicacy. I would love to workout more- In fact, I was thinking of doing this, but I need to finish my 30DS within the deadline I've set for myself. And 30DS is only 20-25 mins...so a longer workout won't be happening tonight.

ruhimaach

I do hav ur same problem.. I usually calculate the calories in each and every ingredient...addd it up. when the curry is finally done, I will weight it on my kitchen scale... for eg: if the moong dal curry weighs 1 kg and the calories of all the ingredients that went into it totals to 1000 0(for eg...).. then it becomes easy... I weigh the curry Iam going to eat and if it is 250 gm... then my calorie intake is 10000/250.... hope it helps... the calories for each ingredient can be googled.... (it will be on the higher side coz water doesnt have calories..but still...an approximation...

I need to buy a kitchen scale! All I have are measuring cups and spoons. :-) I try to Google the calorie value as well...but those differ so much based on the website you use. Plus, everybody's recipe is so different. I guess I need to stop sweating the small stuff so much! I'm just so scared of eating too much, which is what landed me in the position where I am now. I just wish the Indian ingredients that we buy from stores also followed the nutrition labeling a little more...A lot of the bags come with nutrition information, but some of them still don't.