No idea how to calculate calories?

LarDoucheLar
LarDoucheLar Posts: 171 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I find making home cooked meals hard as i have no idea how many calories are in them. Which is why i'd rather buy a premade meal or an products that come clear with nutritional values.

I'm having three cheese pasta bake (penne pasta) tonight with bolognese sauce and a slice of garlic butter ciabatta.

Any ideas how i could calculate it?

Replies

  • tigerlily8045
    tigerlily8045 Posts: 402 Member
    Add it to you recipes. It may take a couple of minutes now but if you are like me, our family eats the same thing over and over, so its there ready to use for next time.
  • sweetnlow30
    sweetnlow30 Posts: 497 Member
    I used to struggle with this and I admit it makes meal prep more time consuming but it is worth it :wink: You need to measure your ingredients as you add them to your recipe then log them using the recipe feature of mfp. You can decide how many servings your dish will make then measure yourself one serving when it is done. For accuracy, you can weigh your entire dish then divide the weight by the amount of servings so you know what a servings weighs. You can also eyeball it. I find it easiest to have a slip of paper in the kitchen to write my amounts down then I log them while the food is cooking and I have a bit of down time. I hope that helps.
  • LarDoucheLar
    LarDoucheLar Posts: 171 Member
    I'll definitely do that. Thanks you both.

    I don't have food scales here but i'll be definitley buying some as soon as possible. I'll just make an estimate today somehow.. .
  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    I make a lot of homecooked meals and I tend to either add up all the ingredients together and then create a recipe or just mark each ingredient individually on my Foods list. I've been with another site for the past two years and have just recently moved to MFP, so it'll be slow going for me to start adding my recipes again!

    And definitely get the scale. I have two: one in the kitchen and one in the Rec Room where the peanuts and snacks are! :)
  • khall86790
    khall86790 Posts: 1,100 Member
    Weigh everything and normally if it's a well known brand (or even a local brand from a big chain store) then the bar code will scan onto the system and come up with calories.
  • CM9178
    CM9178 Posts: 1,251 Member
    Just because something isn't pre-packaged doesn't mean you can't calculate the calories for it. If you are using fresh meat or vegetables, they are in the MFP food database. If you are using anything else from a can, bottle, jar, packet, etc, the nutrition information would be on the label, or again, in the database. There is also a recipe builder on here, so you just put in all of your ingredients and servings number, and it will tell you how many calories are in 1 serving.
  • LarDoucheLar
    LarDoucheLar Posts: 171 Member
    Added my recipe and worked everything out turned out the pasta bake only worked out at 353 calories :). As i made enough to serve 6 people (2L casserole dish).

    :) so thankyou everyone

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