How Do People Create Meals?

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Vanessa1969
Vanessa1969 Posts: 144 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am making a vegetarian Shepherd's Pie this weekend, and I want to ask advice on how people track and build meals like that? Normally I just have different components on my plate, and that is easy to measure, this is the first time doing something that is amalgamated like that.
Do you weigh each item separately raw, then find out how many calories are in each of the ingredients per weight, and at the same time keep track of the total uncooked weight, and then determine portion sizes that way? There are, at least, seven different ingredients in it.
Or is there another way to do it? My way seems a bit awkward, and will be based on raw weight but portions based on cooked weight. I know there will be a difference, but will it be a significant one?
Any advice would be great!
Thanks.

Replies

  • Vanessa1969
    Vanessa1969 Posts: 144 Member
    Options
    I am making a vegetarian Shepherd's Pie this weekend, and I want to ask advice on how people track and build meals like that? Normally I just have different components on my plate, and that is easy to measure, this is the first time doing something that is amalgamated like that.
    Do you weigh each item separately raw, then find out how many calories are in each of the ingredients per weight, and at the same time keep track of the total uncooked weight, and then determine portion sizes that way? There are, at least, seven different ingredients in it.
    Or is there another way to do it? My way seems a bit awkward, and will be based on raw weight but portions based on cooked weight. I know there will be a difference, but will it be a significant one?
    Any advice would be great!
    Thanks.
  • Zara11
    Zara11 Posts: 1,247 Member
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    There's a website where you can enter in the type/amount of ingredients and it calculates it for you. lots of people here use it. I don't recall what it is named, but a search through MFP forums or google should turn it up.

    Good luck!
  • Amy_B
    Amy_B Posts: 2,323 Member
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    If you Google "recipe analyzer", the second or so one is from Fit Watch. That's what I use for recipes. If I don't think it sounds right, I'll just do everything individually on MFP and keep track of that meal.
  • nwfamilygal
    nwfamilygal Posts: 635
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    Go to
    http://caloriecount.about/cc/recipe_analysis.php
  • magnolia1077
    magnolia1077 Posts: 70
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    Thanks for posting this. I was just about to ask the very same question!
  • purrrr
    purrrr Posts: 1,073
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    i dunno about the recipe analyzer, i do it just the way you suggest, i think this is the best way to do it rather than relying on eyeballing of portions... you don't really need the raw weight of the pie, as long as you enter the separate ingredients, you only need the cooked weight after that... for example i made me some crackers with lotsa ingredients and saved everything one by one as a meal (you basically have to add up everything to a meal, save it, then delete the whole thing and go back and add the portion of that meal), so they weight 370g and today i had 50g of that which is 13.5% so i put it down as 0.135 meal

    it's really annoying to have to measure everything and anything but particularly with such caloric food i really prefer to have it as precise as possible :grumble:
  • Vanessa1969
    Vanessa1969 Posts: 144 Member
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    I did check out the analyzers, but decided that I was going to do everything separately. I went and looked up what everything is cooked though, not raw. I am entering it here, but as a grand total, then I can split it by serving. So, if there are 10 servings, I am entering one serving as .10 of the total.
    I have finished cooking most of it already, and had about 3/4 of a cup for lunch and it is delicious. I am cooking the potatoes and yams now for the topping.

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