Measuring Nutrional/Calorie Value of Restaurant Food

shoomai1227

OK...my family and I just came back from having dinner in Chinatown. We ordered a variety of food and I sampled a little bit of everything. The question here is that some of us may dine at these restaurants (non-chain) where some of their offerings are items not actually listed in MFP's database. It's hard to enter these items in the database when you don't know it at all whatsoever.

How do you handle situations where you're not sure of the amount and value of the food?

How do I handle it the next time I go out?

Any suggestions?

ultraplop

I would suggest just using an existing item in the database that is as close as possible in description of what you ate. Unless you get the exact recipe or the restaurant can provide a calorie count, its going to be guesswork anyway.

deejed

I did the same thing the other day. I ate at a Chinese buffet, and just ate a few bites of most foods. I had about 3 pieces of sushi, 2 small pieces of general tsaos, 2 tablespoons of noodles, and a few other bites of things. I also had fruit for my dessert. When I went to add the food, I typed in the search "chinese food". There was actually listed "one plate of chinese food". I felt this was pretty much what I had. The calories wasn't a huge amount actually. Maybe, in the 300 range. I hope this helps.

TheVimFuego

I'd pick the least starchy thing (meat-based for me) with the least added sauce and wouldn't sweat the calories.