Cafeteria @ Work with no Nutrition Facts

mattdonders
mattdonders Posts: 2
in Food and Nutrition
Does anyone eat lunch daily at a cafeteria at their place of employment?

I eat lunch daily here and they don't post nutrition information on their foods so I was thinking of just searching for a similar food (for example if I have a wrap or sandwich of some sort) and find something with the same ingredients of the one I purchased.

Does anyone recommend this behavior or have any tips or suggestions on how I should track something like this?

Thank you in advance!

Replies

  • iron93
    iron93 Posts: 22
    hard to tell as you have no idea who goes in the food they serve.

    can you not prepare your own food each day and bring it into work?
  • YoungDoc2B
    YoungDoc2B Posts: 1,593 Member
    Just search for a similar food in the database, like you said. That's the best way to get a general idea of how many calories you're taking in. It won't be 100% accurate,but it's the best you can do considering the circumstances.

    Have you tried packing your lunch and bringing it to work with you instead? That way you'll know the exact calorie amount of your meals.
  • mattdonders
    mattdonders Posts: 2
    hard to tell as you have no idea who goes in the food they serve.

    can you not prepare your own food each day and bring it into work?

    Have you tried packing your lunch and bringing it to work with you instead? That way you'll know the exact calorie amount of your meals.


    That is my next goal but I need to get in the habit of doing so and making it healthy. I usually eat salads at work with tons of veggies and some protein in them so I am comfortable that I am getting a very good meal, but maybe packing a salad or dinner leftovers will better help me track.
  • MuddyEquestrian
    MuddyEquestrian Posts: 366 Member
    I eat at my work cafeteria all the time. Some of the hot meals they serve they do have the nutrition facts for you to look at. Other things do not such as salad and sandwich bar (chicken salad etc). If i cannot find the nutrition facts for a prepared meal I just stay away from it. Instead I get some form of protein, vegetable and fruit that I can find the calorie content on my own.
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
    I just estimate ingredient amounts and come up with a decent total. I eventually stopped going to the cafe and started making my own lunch every day. My weight loss has not changed at all so I assume my estimations from the cafe must have been pretty close.
  • iron93
    iron93 Posts: 22
    nutrition facts are a start but only half facts.

    i would also check what ingredients goes into the food... are there additives.. or other toxic chemicals in the food? i would not eat anything .. not knowing what exactly is in it.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,423 Member
    Sure, just pick something that is as close as you can find - all the entries we make (food and exercise) are estimates, sometimes we can get pretty close, other times they are quite arbitrary.
    I go to a lot of conferences and eat out pretty often and I would never expect to find nutritional info for these kinds of occasions - I just take a guess.
  • SomeoneSomeplace
    SomeoneSomeplace Posts: 1,094 Member
    I guess a lot and overestimate if I'm unsure using similar things in data base. I just normally construct entire meals using similar bread, meat, condiments etc.

    Or bring your own food. I bet it'll save you money and taste better
  • Beethoven1827
    Beethoven1827 Posts: 102 Member
    I eat at work four times a week; what I do for logging is to search for the closest thing to what I've had, and compare several options. I usually count either the highest cal or the middle, depending on what it is and how much variation there is. Yes, it's an estimate that could be wildly out, but I try to overestimate at least...

    I could bring my own food, but since I work in an office on my own, lunchtime is the only reliable time I have to sit and chat with other people, and I don't want to miss out on that. Plus family life, taking children to various activities in the evening etc. can mean it's good to have had a hot main meal in the middle of the day, so the evening can be a quick & easy light meal.
  • Keiko385
    Keiko385 Posts: 514 Member
    I use to work food service, cafeterias, many places in the US get deliveries from Sysco and there a lot of their brands already in the MFP database.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
    Bring your own lunch, it's cheaper and trackable.

    In the grand scheme of things, I'd like everyone to stop eating at places that don't provide nutritional information. You'd not put up with it with any other service where they don't bother to tell you what they are selling.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,947 Member
    I do something similar with restaurant meals. It might not be terribly accurate but I still managed to lose at my goal level, even when I was on vacation and eating out twice a day. I go by taste, so if the sauteed spinach tastes particularly buttery I will count an extra tablespoon of fat. I also sometimes take apart the ingredients (don't forget to include the cooking fat) and log that. Friend me if you want to see my diary.
  • shaunap3
    shaunap3 Posts: 206 Member
    I think it kind of depends on what you're eating. A lot of times I break my foods down. So say the "house salad" I got at my work I broke down into each individual piece (cheese, crouton, cucumber, dressing, etc), then saved it to my foods for easy reference.
  • dougt333
    dougt333 Posts: 697
    I search the ingredients seperately and create a recipe for them. For example in my recipes you'll see Florida Hospital meatball sub and things like that.
  • Natashaa1991
    Natashaa1991 Posts: 866 Member
    thats my life. i live in China, and since there's a lot of European and American food here (once again, i almost never eat Asian food) i can count calories when i cook pretty easily. But when i eat out i always guess and just choose something that sounds similar from database. Chinese people don't care about calories so restaurants never have nutrition facts. To make it clear, not being able to count exact amount of calories and fat grams hasn't stopped me from progress, just use your common sense when it comes to picking healthy food.
  • MizzDoc
    MizzDoc Posts: 493 Member
    stick to salads if you can.
    ask the cooks to grill your chicken or meat instead of frying.
    stay away from any of the fried foods.
    ask them for single serve size pasta with sauce on side.
  • leappleton
    leappleton Posts: 29
    Hi, I suppose it depends on what you eat, I eat in my work cafeteria every day (when I'm in work I'm actually on secondment at home at the moment) and I only choose things that I know I can get the calories for. Eg, I will make my own salad from the salad bar, get a sandwich made up at the counter where I can choose what goes in or get a jacket potato with some ham or beans. They also have hot meals such as lasagnes, chicken in sauces etc and I dont go for these as it would be too difficult to estimate the calories.
    Getting them to make me a sandwich with 2 slices of brown bread, some ham and salad is no different to me taking my own lunch and I still get the social side of the canteen at lunchtimes.
  • mmaboydwechanged
    mmaboydwechanged Posts: 105
    thats my life. i live in China, and since there's a lot of European and American food here (once again, i almost never eat Asian food) i can count calories when i cook pretty easily. But when i eat out i always guess and just choose something that sounds similar from database. Chinese people don't care about calories so restaurants never have nutrition facts. To make it clear, not being able to count exact amount of calories and fat grams hasn't stopped me from progress, just use your common sense when it comes to picking healthy food.


    You live in China? Thats very interesting, I know they like soups over there and lots of fried food. They also love their MSG.
  • Natashaa1991
    Natashaa1991 Posts: 866 Member
    yeah but as i said i barely eat Chinese. I eat a lot of Japanese though :) i'm a language student and that's how i ended up here. And since there's a lottttt of foreigners, they started importing western food. which they don't really care about, but that's another story :)

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