How to calculate calories in homemade food

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UnkemptCaptain
UnkemptCaptain Posts: 22
in Food and Nutrition
Soooooo I barely get responses when I post on these types of things so I am gonna try again.

I make my food on a weekly basis. Everything is homemade. The only thing is, how do I calculate how many calories are in each meal? Do I take the amount of calories from each ingredient? Like from the black pepper and things like that? How can I find out how many calories are in my vegetables?

I am completely lost when it comes to this sort of thing. :cry: Please help! I am trying to accurately log my food diary.

Replies

  • DirtyCurvesAhead
    DirtyCurvesAhead Posts: 121
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    Imput the ingredients into "my recipes" and tell it the # of servings and it will produce the cal and macro brake down for you.
  • ScientificExplorerGirl
    ScientificExplorerGirl Posts: 535 Member
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    http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php#

    This website should help :flowerforyou:
  • strive4more11
    strive4more11 Posts: 213 Member
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    Imput the ingredients into "my recipes" and tell it the # of servings and it will produce the cal and macro brake down for you.

    This.

    And as far as knowing calories in each item, the most accurate thing to do is get a food scale and weigh EVERYTHING.
  • tryclyn
    tryclyn Posts: 2,414 Member
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    Have you tried the Recipe function here, yet?
    Enter your ingredients with amounts, decide on a serving size and then just calculate how many servings. It doesn't matter how much anyone else eats as long as you know how much you ate.

    Example: I make Mac n Cheese my way. First time I calculate by baking in a cake pan and then cutting into portions which measured out to about a cup and a half (you could go by weight if you prefer). Now I know how much is in a single serving when I make it normally and it doesn't matter how much anyone else takes or I know if I take more than one serving.
  • VBnotbitter
    VBnotbitter Posts: 820 Member
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    Imput the ingredients into "my recipes" and tell it the # of servings and it will produce the cal and macro brake down for you.

    This.

    And as far as knowing calories in each item, the most accurate thing to do is get a food scale and weigh EVERYTHING.

    Yep
  • flatlndr
    flatlndr Posts: 713 Member
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    Input the ingredients into "my recipes" and tell it the # of servings and it will produce the cal and macro brake down for you.

    I do exactly this as well. Works nicely for me.
  • christmre
    christmre Posts: 109 Member
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    I make my meals at home too, and I use the my recipe function to determine the calories in my food. It seems to work pretty well for me, good luck! :)
  • elliej
    elliej Posts: 466 Member
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    Imput the ingredients into "my recipes" and tell it the # of servings and it will produce the cal and macro brake down for you.

    This.

    And as far as knowing calories in each item, the most accurate thing to do is get a food scale and weigh EVERYTHING.

    Yep
    QFT
  • weber22c
    weber22c Posts: 41
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    Enter ingredients into recipes here on MFP. I even do that with my homemade lattes so that once I enter the recipe and save it, it's a single click to add coffee to my food diary rather than having to add milk, sugar, etc. As for servings, measure it - whether that's by cutting the food up into individual servings, measuring a serving out using measuring cups, or, the most accurate way, weighing it.

    I personally do not bother entering spices when I create a new recipe on MFP. Spices are very low in calories and it's simply not worth it to me to give a damn about what's probably less than 0.25 calories per serving.
  • SephiraRose
    SephiraRose Posts: 775 Member
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    the recipe function works well, a bit tedious but worth the effort.
  • amrluvarr
    amrluvarr Posts: 52 Member
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    I also use the recipe function on MFP! It has worked really well for me. Just enter in the ingredients and number of servings. I use a food scale to measure out the servings.
  • chezjuan
    chezjuan Posts: 747 Member
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    Like everyone else, I use the recipe builder. I weigh all the ingredients raw and add all spices/oils etc. I use (even if it is just a dash). I search the database for the raw entries - for most things, just add "raw" and "USDA" after the item name and you get the USDA Nutrition database information which tends to be very accurate. If it is a new meal, I'll guess on the servings a bit, and potentially adjust the number when I see either the calories per serving or volume of finished product.

    When the dish is done, I weigh the total in grams and divide that number by the number of servings the meal makes, then I weigh out my portions when serving.

    For some things where I want to be able to use them in other recipes (like marinara sauce) I will then make a food database entry so I can add the whole ingredient to another recipe, since MFP doesn't let me add a recipe to a recipe (as far as I can tell). Then I can make something like eggplant parmesan and just add the appropriate number of servings of my sauce rather than having to enter all those ingredients again.
  • Camera_BagintheUK
    Camera_BagintheUK Posts: 707 Member
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    Weigh EVERYTHING even the pepper.
    Enter every ingredient - if it's something you make regularly and stick to the same recipe, you can enter the recipe and save it
    If you encounter an ingredient that isn't in the MFP database, you can enter it yourself using the data on the packet, or you can probably find it somewhere on the internet.
    Search for vegetables and spices - raw or generic, otherwise you'll get all sorts of weird things!
    Go for weights (more accurate)

    :smile:
  • UnkemptCaptain
    UnkemptCaptain Posts: 22
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    Wow! Thanks everyone! I hadn't known that I had gotten responses until I randomly checked. All of you have helped out a ton! Again, thank you!
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
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    Weigh EVERYTHING even the pepper.
    Enter every ingredient - if it's something you make regularly and stick to the same recipe, you can enter the recipe and save it
    If you encounter an ingredient that isn't in the MFP database, you can enter it yourself using the data on the packet, or you can probably find it somewhere on the internet.
    Search for vegetables and spices - raw or generic, otherwise you'll get all sorts of weird things!
    Go for weights (more accurate)

    :smile:
    I'd actually advise not to use "generic" as a search term as what you'll get will almost certainly be added by someone else and could be taken from anywhere. The entries added by MFP staff are taken from the USDA and don't have an asterisk (*) next to them. I go with those as far as possible for meat, fruit, vegetables etc. It takes a bit of practice to find out which search terms work best, but usually things like:

    -"cabbage - raw" for raw fruit/veg
    -"Cabbage - Cooked, boiled, drained, without salt" for cooked veg, so I would just search "cabbage cooked" to find that one
    -"Chicken - Breast, meat only, cooked, roasted" for cooked meats (I'd search "chicken breast meat cooked"
    -"Chicken - Breast, meat and skin, raw" - for cooked meat
    ... but then... "Turkey - Light meat, raw" - so some of them come up slightly differently
    -herbs and spices tend to have the word spices in front, so eg. "spices - cumin seed" or "spices - pepper, black"

    It is a bit tedious, especially to start with, but those entries should be pretty reliable and it saves having to wade through and check lots of user-added entries. It gets a lot easier once you've done it a few times and know what you're looking for.

    If you want to check the usda yourself, this is a good link:http://nutritiondata.self.com/ It's also useful if you can't work out how the entry should be worded in the MFP database.
  • JazmineYoli
    JazmineYoli Posts: 547 Member
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    The entries added by MFP staff are taken from the USDA and don't have an asterisk (*) next to them.

    As long as I've been using this site I had NO IDEA. Thanks.
  • kayedani89
    kayedani89 Posts: 14
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    Glad I saw this. I have been trying to figure it out, thank you!
  • AllonsYtotheTardis
    AllonsYtotheTardis Posts: 16,947 Member
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    http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php#

    This website should help :flowerforyou:

    lolwut?

    Did you really just send the OP to a different website for this, when MFP has a recipe builder?
  • pdelgrosso
    pdelgrosso Posts: 2
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    Just type in homemade and the meal. You will learn to guesstimate how much your serving should be by a quick glance at what other shave I putted. Don't get hung up on exact numbers the whole point is to watch what you eat and portion control. You will notice that if you type in homemade chili beef..... You will see a dozen other entries just estimate which one is closest and run with that if you feel you are light add a couple calories for safety. I have lost 110 lbs and really it comes from paying attention and using the app. Be honest , don't starve yourself and you will get there faster than you ever expected.
  • Debbjones
    Debbjones Posts: 278 Member
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    Go to this website, enter your recipe and let the nutritional calculator do all the work for you!

    http://nutritiondata.self.com/mynd/myrecipes/welcome?returnto=/mynd/myrecipes

    One of the best sites ever for nutritional content for home made recipes! Enjoy! :-)

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