How to find equivalent foods?

iokua15

I'm new to the site and I'm curious to see what everyone else does when they can't find the food they ate on the calorie list?
For example: When I went to this locally owned restaurant to eat a burger last night I obviously couldn't find the restaurant in the list. So I thought... wow this is going to be interesting.... So I tried to look up something equivalent in the list. The closest I found was the Guacamole Bacon Burger at Red Robin. Although my sandwich didn't have bacon on it I figured the (probably) 2 strips of bacon counted (in calories) on that burger would be equal to the cheese on mine. Sooo... My question is.. How do you go about adding something you can't find on the food list?

P.S.
I checked the website of the restaurant I went to (some restaurant sites list nutrition facts) and even google searched it.. but No luck.

stylistchik

In that case I'd look for something listed as "Burger 1/4 pound" or something generic and then add your lettuce, cheese, whatever. I know red robins calorie counts are notoriously huge!

raelbee

I have a couple strategies....I try to find the closest equivalent and use that, or I enter in each ingredient individually.

Also, for the burger you mentioned, redrobin.com has an awesome customization tool where you can add/subtract anything you want from your burger or meal and they give you the nutrition info. You could use that tool when you have a burger from somewhere else and want a ballpark estimate of what you've eaten.

cathcakey

Yeah I do exactly what you do - just look for something of similar size/ingredients. I figure hardly anything I eat is going to be correct to the exact calorie, so as long as it's similar I'm happy.
(On this flip side, I never log on here when I do weight lifting in the gym so usually I have some extra calories to spare if I underestimate the food I'm eating)

iokua15

Thank you all! That helped alot! Good to know I'm doing it mostly correct! Thank you!