home cooked meals are hard to log :(

havalinaaa

Any tips out there for how to figure out made-from-scratch meals? I make nearly all of my own meals, and often make the individual components (like making gnocchi, bread, etc). I find myself guesstimating and being left really unsure of my actual calorie count, not to mention protein/carb/fat makeup.

radicalreader

Under the food tab is a recipe sub-tab.
You can enter the ingredients of your recipe and then decide how many servings. It does all the math for you.

choconuts

Subscribing.

I'm curious to read suggestions.

I currently input all ingredients into the recipe builder, and divide by how many portions.

rockerbabyy

theres a Recipe section under food - you can enter everything you put into the made from scratch stuff, and it will calculate it you can save it and use it when ever.
i use this feature all the time! the only thing is i have 2 pages of recipes.... i know i added more than that but there seems to be either a limit or a glitch >.>

mai_ngo216

Do you use the my recipe option? You can create your own recipe and add ingredients which will calculate the calories per serving for you. Hope that helps. :-)

sandrabutterfly

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
Use this website...it is much easier

Romans624

I have this difficulty when something includes a sauce. I'm thinking of getting multiple "serving" containers that I can use to divide the food and sauce if applicable into equal containers - that's one way. I can also total the amounts for ingredients in the sauce, divide the sauce by that # of servings... if you dont eat all the sauce then my bet is you would have to guesstimate (on the conservative side) the caloric difference.)

cramernh

Any tips out there for how to figure out made-from-scratch meals? I make nearly all of my own meals, and often make the individual components (like making gnocchi, bread, etc). I find myself guesstimating and being left really unsure of my actual calorie count, not to mention protein/carb/fat makeup.

Like the others have mentioned, the recipe-section here allows you to enter in your own recipes.. its really very easy...

Romans624

Well looking at what everyone else said... I'm happy you asked

EDesq

Any tips out there for how to figure out made-from-scratch meals? I make nearly all of my own meals, and often make the individual components (like making gnocchi, bread, etc). I find myself guesstimating and being left really unsure of my actual calorie count, not to mention protein/carb/fat makeup.

Use the Recipe Calculator. I actually find that homemade meals are EASY to log because of it.

d2footballJRC

recipe builder is the easiest way to be accurate. I use a food scale though for a lot of my stuff as well. If I didn't use recipe builder I just put each item in separately.

I cook a lot of hungry girl meals now, those give you the calories on the cooking book page.

Megan2Project

Recipe option, AND measure all your ingredients

Real_Cool_Hand

Yeh just input all your ingredients, its kind of a pain but its worth it. And divide the portions up first and put away leftovers ahead of time.

havalinaaa

I feel like a moron, thanks everyone! I will definitely use the recipe builder!

Rilke

I feel like a moron, thanks everyone! I will definitely use the recipe builder!

Haha, don't feel like a moron -- just feel grateful! I love the recipe builder.

dryfli

i use the recipe builder and put in exact amts of the ingredients. to figure out portions, i weight the entire pot of food on a food scale, subtract out the weight of the pot. that tells me how many ounces the food is. then i portion out what i consider to be "one portion". i weigh that, then divide by the total weight to find out how many portions are in the pot. for soups, i portion everything in 1 cup sizes and weigh this, then do the division. tedious yes, but weighing stuff is the easiest way to really figure out the portions of something and be accurate.

kr3851

I have this difficulty when something includes a sauce. I'm thinking of getting multiple "serving" containers that I can use to divide the food and sauce if applicable into equal containers - that's one way. I can also total the amounts for ingredients in the sauce, divide the sauce by that # of servings... if you dont eat all the sauce then my bet is you would have to guesstimate (on the conservative side) the caloric difference.)

Something someone else suggested on another thread was to 'build' your sauce as a recipe, then once you have your nutritional info, add it as a food in the database (perhaps as a single serve), and then you can use it as an ingredient in other recipes - seeing as at the moment you can't use one recipe inside another.

havalinaaa

now that sounds like a good idea!

I have this difficulty when something includes a sauce. I'm thinking of getting multiple "serving" containers that I can use to divide the food and sauce if applicable into equal containers - that's one way. I can also total the amounts for ingredients in the sauce, divide the sauce by that # of servings... if you dont eat all the sauce then my bet is you would have to guesstimate (on the conservative side) the caloric difference.)

Something someone else suggested on another thread was to 'build' your sauce as a recipe, then once you have your nutritional info, add it as a food in the database (perhaps as a single serve), and then you can use it as an ingredient in other recipes - seeing as at the moment you can't use one recipe inside another.

havalinaaa

I will never do this. I weigh things when I bake but that's because I need to to get good baked goods. I ENJOY cooking. I don't enjoy spending an extra 30 minutes preparing it due to weighing. Not to knock what you do, but I just know that personally this isn't something I am ever going to do. I'm ok with a little wiggle room in my caloric intake for guesstimation errors.

i use the recipe builder and put in exact amts of the ingredients. to figure out portions, i weight the entire pot of food on a food scale, subtract out the weight of the pot. that tells me how many ounces the food is. then i portion out what i consider to be "one portion". i weigh that, then divide by the total weight to find out how many portions are in the pot. for soups, i portion everything in 1 cup sizes and weigh this, then do the division. tedious yes, but weighing stuff is the easiest way to really figure out the portions of something and be accurate.

mariapuhl

I think home cooked meals are the easiest to log because I know exactly what goes in them. I dread when I go out to eat and don't know if the chef at this restaurant puts a little extra butter or a little extra whatever or makes the portion a little bigger, etc. And at non-chain restaurants, then I have ZERO guide at all for what goes into it.

Home cooked meals just takes once in the recipe builder and that's it. Fabulous.

latysh

Do you log in RAW ingredients ?
I made meat loaf yesterday and need to figure out how much calories is in it. Its 50/50 ground pork and beef so do I log in RAW pork and RAW beef amounts that I have measured before cooking or go off the already cooked entire thing ?
PLEASE HELP!

caroldot

Use the recipe builder. For those meals that I cook on a regular basis (like alot of crockpot recipes). I enter all the ingredients which is not a problem becuase most everything is already in the system and then create my own. But I don't share on the community recipe tracker since its my own personal I don't feel the need. So it just saves under my personal recipes and then its there to add whenever I need it.

Michele7091

Subscribing.

I'm curious to read suggestions.

I currently input all ingredients into the recipe builder, and divide by how many portions.

I do the same. And then you only have to scan/enter everything once because the next time you make it, its already saved in there. Soup is a pain for me because I have to count the number of ladles (or cups) to determine the serving size but once I make it one time I don't have to worry about it anymore.

AFabulous50

bump

9jenn9

Over the years, I've collected a lot of recipes. Many of them are from my mom or from older cookbooks (before the days when nutritional info was included.) I use a web site called Spark Recipes. It has a recipe calculator that's easy to use. Then I add the info to "My Foods" on mfp and never have to bother with it again.

latysh

So anyone knows if i should add RAW serving sizes or cooked please help!!!

greeneyes191

I sometimes use the recipe builder for my whole dinner plate. For example, I had a chicken breast, med sweet potato and 2/3 cup of corn for dinner. I entered it as a recipe and it was then easy to just add to my food diary. Then if I have the same meal again I don't have to try and figure out what each item is individually. Can you tell I'm a creature of habit??

nakmom

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
Use this website...it is much easier

That is awesome! Thank you!

oKathryno

Bump

rockerbabyy

So anyone knows if i should add RAW serving sizes or cooked please help!!!

i would use the raw serving sizes - 4 oz of coooked is more than 4 oz raw, and since you arent adding cooked meat to the meatloaf the calories wouldnt be the same if you used the cooked portion size.