Dinner Out?

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danibabs
danibabs Posts: 298 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi!
Just wondering...how does everyone go about entering food/calories from a dinner out? I was out last night for a nice dinner at a restaurant and have no idea how to go about entering the food I had, which were pretty unique to the restaurant. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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  • mama050709
    mama050709 Posts: 100
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    Before we go out ANYWHERE for dinner, I google the restaurants nutritional information :) Or you could simply ask the restaurant for the information.
  • Sara1978
    Sara1978 Posts: 213 Member
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    I run into the same thing-- we eat out a lot, and tend toward ethnic cuisines that just aren't listed on the MFP site. Non-chain restaurants, at least in this state, are not required by law to provide nutritional information, and most of the places we eat fall into that category. I enter the individual ingredients in the meal separately with the best estimate that I can make as to quantity.and what they were cooked in. It is imperfect, but a couple of calories off here and there aren't going to set you back much if you're as honest about them as you can be.
  • sweet4keeps22
    sweet4keeps22 Posts: 291 Member
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    I just fish around for the closest thing I can find on the board. Usually there's *something* that is similar enough. If nothing is coming up, I expand my search parameters. I try to make sure that what I'm entering is from a restaurant, too. For example, I frequently go to a Mexican restaurant that serves a spinach quesadilla not found on the board. I have a couple of options in terms of somewhat similar items I can substitute in, some of them are "homemade" but one of them is from a restaurant (that I've never heard of) called Skeeter's Bar and Grill. I err on the side of using the food item from the Bar, rather than any homemade item. If my search comes back with many search results, I tend to err on the side of choosing the item most similar, with the highest or mid-high calorie count. For example, if I go to a mexican restaurant and need a choice for my side of rice, there are about 20 different entries. I just pick the highest or middle one, never the lowest one, and I try to pick one for a restaurant I might think is comparable. If I absolutely can't find anything, I do my best to piece together what I think were the ingredients of the dish were and exaggerate things like oil/butter to add some calories for good measure. Hope this helps! :wink:
  • rockinright
    rockinright Posts: 241
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    The tough part is determining portion sizes and how much butter, etc they use that can drastically affect calories and fat. Usually I just save this type of dinner out for a "bad" day.
  • leavinglasvegas
    leavinglasvegas Posts: 1,495
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    I always look at the menu ahead of time and plan it. Call the restaraunt beforehand too, just to make sure I don't wind up with any surprizes.

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