Cooking Oils: Calorie help

imfittted

When you cook with oil, do you include the full amount of calories for the amount of oil you use or does some of it get cooked off? For example I cooked with 1 tbsp of olive oil, is that 120 calories that I am eating?

ashley67203

I'm sure a little bit sticks to the pan but the rest stays in the food.

Shelby814

I typically use butter flavored or olive oil PAM, which has 0 calories & 0 fat, but if I do use the real deal, I count the entire amount of calories.

sevencallmemom

I count it all. Would rather overestimate my calories than under, you know?

entropy83

I still count it all- even when I dab it off excess with paper towel. However, I am wondering - a tbsp of oil for a serving of food is pretty heavy, if not then it would be divided with the number of servings. Thus not the full tbsp. You could always go with cooking spray or get an oil mister to reduce the amount of needed for coating the pan, etc. Hope this helpful...

junyr

I count it all. I typically use olive oil for any cooking I do. Sure it's higher calorie but olive oil is pretty darn good for you.

pigwidgeon82

I typically use butter flavored or olive oil PAM, which has 0 calories & 0 fat, but if I do use the real deal, I count the entire amount of calories.

Just so you know, there are about 10 calories in each 1 second spray of Pam. It might not be a lot, but if you are using it every day and using a lot it can add up.

foxbat2828

When you cook with oil, do you include the full amount of calories for the amount of oil you use or does some of it get cooked off? For example I cooked with 1 tbsp of olive oil, is that 120 calories that I am eating?

If whatever is left in the pan can be measured in a measuring cup, then I'd say figure out what you left and you can adjust for that. On the other hand, if the pan just has some oil "sticking to it" or you are blotting off residual oil, then whatever is left really isn't enough to adjust your calories.

Another thing to make sure of is that you divide the oil by the number of servings. That is, if you cook four 4 oz. chicken breast portions in 2 tablespoons of oil, and you eat one of the portions, the oil consumed, assuming nothing left in the pan, would be 1/2 tablespoon. That may make it a little easier to "swallow" the calories.

One thing that I've found, by watching the calories, is that I often find that my old habits of cooking with lots of oil have been heavily modified. It the past, I used to just pour the bottle directly into the pan and if there was more than I needed, it didn't bother me. Nowadays, if a recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of oil, I'll test the recipe with 1 1/2 tablespoons and see if it dramatically alters the results. If not, that's a 1/2 tablespoon that I don't have to worry about. I'll then test it with 1 1/4 and see if I really need even that much. In some cases, I've found that I can easily cut the oil that some recipes call for in half or more and still have minimal or no impact on the overall outcome of the dish. In baking, a good substitute for oil in cakes is applesauce and you can even get away with, depending on the baked goods, especially cakes, with diet soda as a substitute for eggs/oil ... Diet Sprite for white cakes and Diet Coke for chocolate cakes.

imfittted

That's for all the advice. I am probably using more than I need. I have been avoiding pam as much as possible because I am eating all natural/ organic aka nothing artificial and I'm not entirely sure what is in pam.

PrincessLou71186

I use FryLight. It has 1 calorie per spray.

IBATanker

I was wondering the same thing. I cook 8oz of chicken in cubes and use 3 tbsp of 100% extra virgin olive oil which is 120 cal per tbsp, but I soak up the oil off the chicken so they don't have the oil on them. Would you count the oil or not