How do you track when making food in bulk?

alfiedn
alfiedn Posts: 425 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been making my food in bulk for the week over the weekend lately. It's been so helpful since I don't finish work until relatively late at night and/or don't always have a lot of time to create a meal during the week.

I do have a slight problem. I'm just starting to get back on track (I haven't been tracking) and I'd like to lose a few pounds. How can I track my portions when I'm making my food in bulk?

Some things I've been making: chili, vegetarian tacos, hot lentil salad...

How can you save time inputting the recipe and then also track the portions accurately? Before you ask, I do not have a kitchen scale.

Thank you all so much for your help and input! I know many of you are super diligent. I may never be quite that diligent, but I could definitely use a bit of help at the moment.

Replies

  • mamahannick
    mamahannick Posts: 322 Member
    For things like chili, I create a recipe with the totals of all the ingredients that I use (ex: 1 lb ground beef, 15-oz can beans, 1 chopped onion, etc) and guesstimate how many servings it will make. Then after it's made I measure it out into a specific number of portions (say 1-cup portions) and enter that in the "servings" part of the recipe so it's accurate. It's pretty simple after you enter in all the ingredients. That's the annoying part for me.
  • alfiedn
    alfiedn Posts: 425 Member
    Do you store your portions in all separate containers right after you make it or do you measure out from a larger container?
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Without a kitchen scale, you pretty much have to put everything in a bowl or cup and count how many bowls you have, so you can divide in servings (one serving being one bowl or cup). Which is a gigantic pain in the butt, and not accurate.

    So I'd just get a kitchen scale.
  • MadTownD
    MadTownD Posts: 149 Member
    I had this same problem. Here's my work around:

    Made a pot of Chili... got out the bowl I usually eat it in and filled it with what I considered a serving. Poured that bowl into another pot and then just kept repeating 'till I knew how many of my servings were in the pot. Entered the recipe on here and put in the number of bowls I'd filled as the number of servings.

    Same thing with the tacos I made yesterday. First I measured the meat mixture with a two-cup measuring cup, (filled the measuring cup, poured it in a bowl, filled it again, etc.) and it came out to about six cups. The bag of tortillas had 18, so I made six servings, putting 1/3 cup mixture in each tortilla and wrapping the tortillas in foil and put them in the freezer. Then input the recipe ingredients on here and put in six for the number of servings.

    Not sure if this helps, but I hope so.
  • alfiedn
    alfiedn Posts: 425 Member
    These are great tips. I'm sorry, I'm on a very tight budget at the moment and I'm just not sure I can fit a kitchen scale into it, but I love the other ideas a lot.
  • mikeroybal
    mikeroybal Posts: 111 Member
    kitchen scales are pretty cheap unless your doing large volume restaurant/catering work.

    http://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Digital-Multifunction-Kitchen-Elegant/dp/B004164SRA/ref=lp_289787_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1390424738&sr=1-1
  • pdehoog
    pdehoog Posts: 27 Member
    These are great tips. I'm sorry, I'm on a very tight budget at the moment and I'm just not sure I can fit a kitchen scale into it, but I love the other ideas a lot.
    If you don't have a scale then just count spoons. Divide the stuff in portions using a spoon. Not completely accurate but it is better then not having an idea of what you are eating.
  • alfiedn
    alfiedn Posts: 425 Member
    kitchen scales are pretty cheap unless your doing large volume restaurant/catering work.

    http://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Digital-Multifunction-Kitchen-Elegant/dp/B004164SRA/ref=lp_289787_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1390424738&sr=1-1

    I so appreciate your help. That is fairly affordable and when I do have it worked into my budget, I'll think about getting it!
  • alfiedn
    alfiedn Posts: 425 Member
    These are great tips. I'm sorry, I'm on a very tight budget at the moment and I'm just not sure I can fit a kitchen scale into it, but I love the other ideas a lot.
    If you don't have a scale then just count spoons. Divide the stuff in portions using a spoon. Not completely accurate but it is better then not having an idea of what you are eating.

    Helpful! Thank you!
  • AleciaG724
    AleciaG724 Posts: 705 Member
    When I make big batches of things like soup & chili, I pour it into a 2-quart measuring pitcher. That way I can see how many cups I've made, plug in that many portions into the recipe I've created on MFP & then I can portion it out by the cupful for each meal.
  • togmo
    togmo Posts: 257
    Do you store your portions in all separate containers right after you make it or do you measure out from a larger container?

    I too like the previous posters have stated make a big batch of something and then put it into pal while it cools. I figure out based on the calories generally how many serves it will make and only rarely have I found that I needed that one extra serve or I had one too many serves estimated.

    I either rough scoop it out individually or I weight it on scales, mainly depending on whether the missus will want to eat it because at the end of the day if you have 4 serves and you put 4 serves into pal it doesn't really matter if one of them is bigger than the other - you are still consuming that amount of calories in total.

    I either bag mine up in snap lock bags and freeze or I put it in seperate serve or two to a serve tupperware and fridge it. It is pretty simple stuff once you get the hang of it, sadly it becomes almost ordinary practice...

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