Working out cals when removing an ingredient

MrsODriscoll

Hi all - hoping someone can help me with this. I have two questions. Firstly, if a tub of olives in oil and herbs is 248 cals, but I don't eat the oil (other than what sticks to the olives), what should I count it as? Should I eat the olives and then measure the oil that's left in the tub and work out the calories of it and subtract from 248?
Secondly, if a pizza is 733 cals but I have it without the cheese, again what should I count? I don't know what the calories are in cheese nor how much they put on it. Would 500-550 be a reasonable guess?
Thanks for any ideas!

Halloch

That's a tough one. What I do when I omit an ingredient like cheese I use the recipe calculator with MFP. Seems to work good as long as you know how much of the other ingredients you use.

MrsODriscoll

Thanks - but it's a restaurant pizza so I've no idea of other ingredients or even what size the base it. It'll just be base, mushrooms and tomato sauce. Maybe I'll just keep it at 733 and have a tbsp of chilli oil on it to make up for the cheese!

nickssweetheart

For the olives, I'm not sure that the calorie count assumes you are eating the oil. I think it would be simplest to count the olives you eat and calculate the calories for those, then add the calories for 2 tsps of oil to account for the amount clinging to the olives

dls06

look for tomato pie, there are tons to choose from and I don't think the calories in the olives include actually drinking the oil so I would stay with nutrition info on that, maybe just don't eat the whole tub.

MrsODriscoll

Ah OK thanks I didn't think of the olives like that. I probably would eat the whole tub though lol - but just with a salad!
I will look for tomato pie now, thanks!

sunryzer

Since I've been tracking nutrients as well as calories, I've taken to storing common dishes in my recipe list and constructing them from scratch using recipes online or, in the case of Wagamama, the restaurant's own cookbook. I've been doing this because very few of the dishes listed in the system include things like potassium and calcium (two nutrients I've been low on recently) and by "building" them from the ingredients I've got a pretty good nutritional picture.

I know that when I have Indian food, I'm likely to have certain dishes so I've saved recipes for them. Likewise Chinese, Italian and so on. For restaurant pizza you can estimate - bases are usually 6", 10", 14" give-or take an inch for variation. Look up a pizza sauce recipe, a base, mushrooms and chilli oil and you're there

It's a lot of hassle when you first set it up but once it's done, it's done and then you just add it as-and-when with a single click

MrsODriscoll

Thanks - I will have to see how big the base is when I get there and work it out from there. At least I know it won't be more than 733 lol!