what to do for foods w no nutrition info?

jessicasager

What do you do when you visit someone's house and eat there? I mean, I don't want to go rifling through their garbage can to track my calorie intake.. I'm new to this so I'm being very careful with calories so I can stay on track, and I'm also not good at estimation yet. Also, what about at dinner time, when you cook for your family. Say I make spaghetti, do you add up ALL the ingredients and save the meal and add a portion of it to your food diary, or what do you do? I'm stumped. :grumble:

foxyforce

What do you do when you visit someone's house and eat there? I mean, I don't want to go rifling through their garbage can to track my calorie intake.. I'm new to this so I'm being very careful with calories so I can stay on track, and I'm also not good at estimation yet. Also, what about at dinner time, when you cook for your family. Say I make spaghetti, do you add up ALL the ingredients and save the meal and add a portion of it to your food diary, or what do you do? I'm stumped. :grumble:

that is what i do. or i guestimate. like today i ate lasagna, and i forgot the brand name, so i just typed in lasagna and picked a brand and put 1.5 instead of 1, just in case.

Biggestloserfan

When I eat at someone else's house I estimate and when I fix for my family I know what goes in and I usually use a recipe counter on another website and then add in how many servings and then put in the serving information into here. Hope this is helpful.

mrsbice

so i am sort of new to this, but i am a food/recipe stalker, so i ask this stuff all the time...

"wow, this is good, what is in it?"
"what brand of spread is this, it's so good!"

you get the idea, that way you are complementing the meal, and if it's store-bought you can look it up later, if it's not, you have an idea of what to put in the recipe counter.

msh0530

When I eat elsewhere, I try to find something similar in the database and put it in. As far as cooking at home, I either add 1 serving size worth of ingredients to my diary and save one serving as a meal, (like if it takes a cup of something and serves 4, I add 1/4 cup), or I go to another website, enter it, and transfer the data as a meal on my page. The recipe calculator that I use for this is http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp

Hope this helps.

JDHINAZ

If you're at home, measure everything and use a recipe counter. If at someone else's house, I casually work in how the food is made. "Wow, this casserole is great! What's in it?" "Hey, Iove the meatloaf, how do you make yours?" "What's in that sauce? Do you mind if I get the recipe from you?"

Flattery will get you many things.....

katielouhoo

I've been guessing portion size and closest description. Sometimes listing individual items from the casserole/stir fry/ thing.

It generally all works out. For instance, if you claim a 1/2 cup of beans (cause they were in the casserole) but you know you didn't have more than a 1/4 cup in your serving. That can give you some wiggle room for "unknown ingredients".

Unless you stay home and weigh and measure all the items you eat, it is not an exact science.

Just be as honest as you can with your faithful recording and you'll be fine.


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BrendaLee

There's some guesstimation involved in this. When you're cooking at home, it's easy to add the ingredients one by one. When you're at someone else's house, it wouldn't hurt to ask a few questions- like, what kind of sauce did you use? Other than that, you have to guess to the best of your ability.

toots99

Also, what about at dinner time, when you cook for your family. Say I make spaghetti, do you add up ALL the ingredients and save the meal and add a portion of it to your food diary, or what do you do? I'm stumped. :grumble:

That's exactly what I do.