How do you log homemade recipes?

FitCowgirl8

Hey guys I am looking for some help with logging meals that I make from scratch. Most of my recipes I get from sparkrecipes.com so they give me all the nutrition facts right there with the recipe but lately I have been just kind of making up my own recipes and cooking from scratch. How do I figure out the nutritional information for these so I can make sure I am logging correctly? Last night I made a shrimp stir fry so I just used something in the food database that seemed close but I would really like to be more precise. Any suggestions?

flrancho

Go to "Food", then "recipes" and enter in all the ingredients, serving size, and amount of each ingredient. Once submitted you can select that recipe to be added to your food diary.

dirtydmvkid

I might be doing this wrong, but when I cook from scratch I am very careful about the amounts I use. I annotate all the calories for each ingredient I use, add them all up, and then divide it by the amout of servings I end up with. I'm sure there is a better or more efficient way, that's just my 2 cents.

GnochhiGnomes

You have to weigh all the food that you put into the meal and then enter into your diary. Though for veggies I would estimate since they're normally so low calorie.

heatherfitz

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain, but you have to create the recipe and log each ingredient. But good news is that it saves for easy future use

ezramedic

I use the recipe tool, input my recipes in there and go from there :-)

sjohnny

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain, but you have to create the recipe and log each ingredient. But good news is that it saves for easy future use

And then you can change just a few of the ingredients if you make it different next time.

hiddensvelte

There is a section where you can create your own recipes and it calculates the nutritional information. I do it in the mobile app (iphone) haven't tried on the computer yet. Not all ingredients may be available in the database, but I know you can add some specific to your foods.

There are also other food or calorie calculators out there where you just type in the ingredients, sum the calories or other nutritional info and then divide by the number of servings. In fact, this is your chance to customize or really see how many calories your normal serving contains.

Fenomka

And then you can change just a few of the ingredients if you make it different next time.

I do this ALL THE TIME, because I almost never make the same thing twice. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the recipe tool - you don't even have to write out how you made it, just add in the ingredients you used. Just make sure to be accurate with the measurements, and try to find the match to what you used - if the brand isn't there, check the nutrition facts on the website vs the bag/box/container of the food, to make sure that at least the information matches, even if the brand doesn't. that way, you don't have to keep creating a new item every time you use an off brand (which I do, all the time, because they're less expensive)

TrailRunner61

I know it sounds like a lot of work but measure EVERYTHING you put in your recipe, weigh it with a food scale, know the calorie content of each item, add them all up, then divide the entire recipe into portion size. If you're not sure about portion size, just put a random number in, MFP will figure the calories per portion for you. You can always change that if you need to. I have even measured out finished soups, stews so I'd know exactly how many cups were in the entire recipe. For 13 x9 pans of casseroles, I usually just divide by 12.

ms_cataclysm

I have my laptop and mini scales in the kitchen and log the ingredients as I go . For most veggies, it doesn't matter if you guess portion size so I just concentrate on getting high calorie ingredients like olive oil right.

FitCowgirl8

Thanks guys for all your help! That was actually a lot easier to do than I thought. I always measure out my ingredients precisely so being able to just enter them in and have it add them all up for me is great!