Anyone else shunning homemade food due to calorie confusion?

jmsspr93
jmsspr93 Posts: 117 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ive found myself eating ready meals as I know exactly how many calories are in it, and when I have homemade food i am anxious about eating it as I cant tell how many calories are in it.
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Replies

  • mom2kpr
    mom2kpr Posts: 348 Member
    I make mostly all homemade meals. Use the recipe builder. It can take time to enter all the ingredients, but once it's in there, it's saved. The only thing I don't like about it, is you can't edit amounts. If you need to change something, you need to delete it, then re-enter it. Other then then that I love it,
  • easjer
    easjer Posts: 219 Member
    Nope, it's far healthier and tastier. Ready made will inevitably have junk I don't want or need and it is so much more expensive than homemade.

    Additionally - it's all an inexact science. Just because you have it printed in front of you doesn't mean it's wholly accurate. There are tons of recipe/calorie counters out there (including a convenient on on MFP!) that will calculate your calories for you if you enter the recipe. Easy peasy and much, much healthier for your body and wallett.
  • Lizzy622
    Lizzy622 Posts: 3,705 Member
    Actually I am making homemade much more. I can add more vegetables and have much larger portion sizes with less salt. I use the recipe feature to keep my favorites or simply add each ingredient.
  • Samby_v1
    Samby_v1 Posts: 202 Member
    I make mostly all homemade meals. Use the recipe builder. It can take time to enter all the ingredients, but once it's in there, it's saved. The only thing I don't like about it, is you can't edit amounts. If you need to change something, you need to delete it, then re-enter it. Other then then that I love it,
    ^ THIS

    If you cook your own meals you get to control sodium and sugar levels, and no nasty preservatives! You'll most likely be cooking with fewer calories than the store-bought equivalents, so it's a win all round.
  • LovingLifeInCalifornia
    LovingLifeInCalifornia Posts: 9,362 Member
    I eat homemade much more. It's far healthier than any ready-made meal - at least what I make.
  • Kitship
    Kitship Posts: 579 Member
    I know how you feel! I usually eat homemade food for dinner, but pe-packaged food or food I clearly know the calories of for lunch/dinner.
  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,324 Member
    Remember the FDA allows frozen diet meals (any meal or thing really) to be 20% off in calorie count. So that 300 calorie meal..could really be 360. You do that a few times a day..you could overshoot your calories for the day and never know. I often wonder if that is why so many on here have trouble losing.

    So.. I find restaurant food and prepared foods what really throw most of our counts off.
  • Me2FitMe
    Me2FitMe Posts: 1,285 Member
    I eat homemade a lot more now!
  • dwalt15110
    dwalt15110 Posts: 246 Member
    I do homemade and enter it into the recipe maker.and save it. That way I have it as a reference on how I made something and what the calories are. It's a fantastic tool. Premade things have way too much sodium and other chemicals for preservatives. You can make homemade things that are way tastier!
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    home made WAY more often now. I can weigh my portions at home, I can KNOW they are accurate measurements. As was previously stated, regulations allow prepackaged foods a margin of error of +/- 20% - that can add up to a heck of a lot!
  • Will_Thrust_For_Candy
    Will_Thrust_For_Candy Posts: 6,109 Member
    It takes an extra 5 minutes to use the recipe builder and I will guarantee that you will feel way better eating wonderful home prepared food for at least some of your meals than eating all pre-made stuff. Once you get the hang of it, it's not a big deal at all.
  • b_roche
    b_roche Posts: 23 Member
    I know how you feel. Even though the recipe builder is available, it's extremely time-consuming to enter in a new recipe AND figure out how many servings it makes, the latter being even more difficult when it's some kind of one-pot dish or similar. It really constrains cooking and I find myself eating more prepackaged foods and making simpler recipes. But such is eating healthy.
  • karlbaxter
    karlbaxter Posts: 5 Member
    ready meals will not just be packed with salt, but also more sugar.. huge contributory factor in visceral fat.

    I wouldn't touch a ready meal with a barge pole, personally.
  • b_roche
    b_roche Posts: 23 Member
    Remember the FDA allows frozen diet meals (any meal or thing really) to be 20% off in calorie count. So that 300 calorie meal..could really be 360. You do that a few times a day..you could overshoot your calories for the day and never know. I often wonder if that is why so many on here have trouble losing.

    So.. I find restaurant food and prepared foods what really throw most of our counts off.

    Interesting, could you cite that anywhere?
  • karlbaxter
    karlbaxter Posts: 5 Member
    Surely there's no logic in this? it takes way less time than the extra exercise necessary to offset the poisons you're putting into yourself in the name of convenience
  • RachaelLoses
    RachaelLoses Posts: 6
    Nope -- because all my food is basically from scratch. I just add it to my recipes and it's there for my use
  • magurski
    magurski Posts: 45 Member
    Homemade is healthier, cheaper, easier to control portions with, and you know *exactly* what foods you're eating. The only frozen foods I buy now are fresh-frozen veggies and unbreaded protein in bulk (like Costco fish & chicken). The only shelf-stable (no refrigeration needed) foods I buy now are spices, nuts, teas, coffee. I try to buy fresh for everything else.

    I cook nearly every night, then weigh out what I eat, then track that. Sometimes, I'll eat very little, sometimes a lot. But if I'm faced with a pre-packaged meal, even when I don't feel hungry, I feel compelled to eat it all... then usually start snacking later.
  • somefitsomefat
    somefitsomefat Posts: 445 Member
    Ive found myself eating ready meals as I know exactly how many calories are in it, and when I have homemade food i am anxious about eating it as I cant tell how many calories are in it.

    Exactly how many calories EXCEPT that the manufacturers are allowed a certain margin of error so the count might be off. I think homemade foods only get complicated when you start building complex recipes. Even then it's really only a matter of building the recipe.
  • pierremignon
    pierremignon Posts: 172 Member
    Ready-made meals sure are easier to log since they usually have the amount of calories printed on the label. But on the other side of the coin, you don't really know what's in them, and it might not be as fresh or organic or natural compared to when you make it yourself.

    The thing about homemade food is that it takes time to create recipes, but like what the other members said, once it's there, you can use that in the future (assuming that you make it exactly how you cooked it at first) when logging. Plus, you're 100% sure what you put in the pot, so you can control how much sodium, protein, etc. you have in your meals.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    It's a little bit difficult when others have cooked the food, either friends or a no-chain restaurant. But I enjoy my own cooking for most of my meals, and then there's no problem, I just enter all the ingredients in the recipe builder.
  • TheBrolympus
    TheBrolympus Posts: 586 Member
    All homemade here. Use the recipe builder.
  • tabbyblack13
    tabbyblack13 Posts: 299 Member
    I love cooking at home and trying recipes. My neighbors also like it because I cook a lot more then what I can eat and they get a portion too.
  • Tree72
    Tree72 Posts: 942 Member
    I cook at home as much as I always have; which is a lot by typical standards. A digital kitchen scale (about $20) and the recipe builder on here make it pretty easy. It does take a bit of time to enter the recipes, but it's definitely worth it to me. Cooking gives me a lot more options for foods I enjoy and I can still hit my macros as well as calories.
  • lisaabenjamin
    lisaabenjamin Posts: 665 Member
    Nuh uh. Ready meals may be convenient but they are loaded with salt and other preservatives, and they are really expensive too! Unless I am eating out at a restaurant, I pretty much always eat homemade food, as clean as possible. It can be a bit of a faff to log each ingredient individually, but as others have said, once they're in your diary, they are saved so you can add them more quickly next time. Sometimes the calorie counts can be off (especially for the things with a star by them that have been added by naughty MFP members that guess the cals!!! grrrr) but nothing is ever going to be 100% accurate.
  • sisterlilbunny
    sisterlilbunny Posts: 686 Member
    Homemade too when I can. The sodium in the processed/pre-packaged stuff makes me about cry.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    Remember the FDA allows frozen diet meals (any meal or thing really) to be 20% off in calorie count. So that 300 calorie meal..could really be 360. You do that a few times a day..you could overshoot your calories for the day and never know. I often wonder if that is why so many on here have trouble losing.

    So.. I find restaurant food and prepared foods what really throw most of our counts off.

    Interesting, could you cite that anywhere?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hE2lna5Wxuo (I do realize YouTube is less than "scientific")

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective.html?_r=1&

    edit to add another http://www.foodbeast.com/2013/02/22/testing-for-accuracy-declared-calories-vs-actual-calories/
  • dammitjanet0161
    dammitjanet0161 Posts: 319 Member
    No, it's easy to weigh things in your own kitchen! I'm nervous of restaurant food however, and will given the food from the work canteen a miss for the foreseeable - good incentive to bring my own lunches.
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
    Actually I am making homemade much more. I can add more vegetables and have much larger portion sizes with less salt. I use the recipe feature to keep my favorites or simply add each ingredient.

    ^^^^^ THIS!
    Also, if you don't want to use the recipe maker because of editing, save it as a "meal" then you can vary amounts - like swap out omelette ingredients. I only use a ready meal once a week before a class - because its a very early class with only just enough time to eat and digest beforehand, so I know how long it will take and that it won't be too big:smile:
  • magurski
    magurski Posts: 45 Member
    I know how you feel. Even though the recipe builder is available, it's extremely time-consuming to enter in a new recipe AND figure out how many servings it makes, the latter being even more difficult when it's some kind of one-pot dish or similar. It really constrains cooking and I find myself eating more prepackaged foods and making simpler recipes. But such is eating healthy.

    For one-pot meals, weigh out what you "think" a serving should be, and eat it. Then portion out the remainder into other containers. You suddenly have your number of servings counted out easily...
  • luv_lea
    luv_lea Posts: 1,094 Member
    Much rather eat homemade meals, and fruits/veggies.

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