How to figure out nutrition on a home made meal...

DarkOctoberNight

The other night I made Chicken and broccoli Alfredo and had a hard time figuring out the nutrition info. I just did every ingredient individually and guessed on how much of each I ate. When the total number came up for all the nutrition I was a little shocked at how low it was. I feel like it should have been more. It was over 500 cals, but under 600...can't remember exact amount. I mean I only had 1 bowl, but it still didn't seem right considering the same dinner at like Bertucci's is closer to 1000 calories. I dunno if i'm just a bad judge of amount or what. Any suggestions on figuring all of that out for home-made meals?

welcominganewself

Homemade food is generally lower in calories than restaurant food, but you should never guess at the amount. Invest a little bit in a food scale and use measuring cups. You would be surprised how much you are off when guessing. Good luck!

areittinger

Its easier also if you just put it in as a recipe. You still have to enter everything in that you cook with and how much you used. and how many people you served with it. Another plus is that it saves it so if you eat it again, you dont have to enter it all in again.

IMYarnCraz33

go the the food tab
and then click recipes
and create your recipe.
it even asks how many people the recipe is made for
so it can figure out the nutritional info per serving

yeabby

Enter the recipe into the recipe calculator. It'll give a better idea.

dls06

Go to your food page. At the top there will be a recipe option. Click on it. To the right there is a option to creat a recipe. If you put all the ingredients and amout of servings it will calculate everything per serving and total.

TTHdred

Well homemade will always be better than what you get outside. That’s cuz you know and even if it’s unintentionally, you monitor what goes in. most places just load things up with sodium and add what they need to to make the flavor appealing.

In mfp I go to “recipes” under Food and create my meals. If I know I can eat like two plates, or maybe one dinner one lunch from what I make, I determine the serving size. For example, enough for dinner and lunch the next day is two serving sizes. Then I add all the ingredients. That way I can just select it and the serving size and be good. Also won’t have to re-add each time I make it.

Rilke

I'm guessing Bertucci's Alfredo sauce has cream in it. If you made yours the proper way (authentic Alfredo), it didn't.

DarkOctoberNight

Thanks everyone! I'm still kind of new to this. I think it's so cool that they do have a recipes tab!

DarkOctoberNight

I just figured out the nutrition for my recipe and I wasn't too off...prob. ate more then I had put in, but now I know for next time.