How do you figure salad calories?

7elizamae
7elizamae Posts: 758 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Last night I had a salad with lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper, snap peas, and 1T of oil/vinegar dressing.

How would you have counted that? Measure/weigh all the veggies? Use a general green salad number?

Replies

  • abyt42
    abyt42 Posts: 1,358 Member
    When I'm being serious in my efforts, I measure it all. If it's a salad I have often, I still measure it all, but have made recipes so there's a single item to add at mfp.
  • CharleneM723
    CharleneM723 Posts: 80 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    I find weighing food by weight versus volume is much easier (no measuring cups for dry ingredients) and much more accurate.

    Charlene
  • chrissyrenee1029
    chrissyrenee1029 Posts: 358 Member
    When I'm being serious in my efforts, I measure it all. If it's a salad I have often, I still measure it all, but have made recipes so there's a single item to add at mfp.

    I do the same thing. If it's a prepackaged salad of course I go by what's on the label, but if it's something I throw together myself or if I add extras to the pre-made I measure and record each individual thing. Same thing for my morning smoothies.
  • wilmnoca
    wilmnoca Posts: 416 Member
    1. Measure/weigh ingredients
    2. Put ingredients in bowl
    3. Log ingredients in MFP
    4. Eat all the ingredients
  • williams969
    williams969 Posts: 2,528 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    I find weighing food by weight versus volume is much easier (no measuring cups for dry ingredients) and much more accurate.

    Charlene

    ^^This. If it's something I'm making (vs. prepackaged blend), I just "build" my salad on the scale. So much easier than my old way (measuring cups, ugh, never measuring cups again, for me). Even most dressings list a weight per serving on the label, and when they do, I weigh it, too.
  • laineybz
    laineybz Posts: 704 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    I find weighing food by weight versus volume is much easier (no measuring cups for dry ingredients) and much more accurate.

    Charlene

    I do this also.
  • SomeNights246
    SomeNights246 Posts: 807 Member
    I measure it all. And if I don't, I estmate but overestimate.
  • rawhidenadz
    rawhidenadz Posts: 254 Member
    I weigh each ingredient separately before mixing it up in a salad. Usually for shredded lettuce/spinach I just use measuring cups, though. Sometimes I estimate, because after like five years of calorie counting, I'm pretty good at eyeballing portions and calories. When I'm in maintenance mode I estimate a lot more than when I'm actively losing.
  • AwesomeSquirrel
    AwesomeSquirrel Posts: 644 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    Exactly this. In other words the same way I would do everything else. The scale is your friend and ally!
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,622 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    Exactly this. In other words the same way I would do everything else. The scale is your friend and ally!

    Yup, this is me, too. I love the reset function on my scale.

    Though for my nightly dinner veg, I tend to estimate, I have the same thing most nights
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,033 Member
    I would just measure oils, olives, tomatoes etc... IMO the greens are negligible.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    I put my bowl on a food scale, hit on, then add an ingredient, record weight (grams), hit reset, add ingredient, etc.

    I find weighing food by weight versus volume is much easier (no measuring cups for dry ingredients) and much more accurate.

    Charlene

    This exactly.
  • SymphonynSonata
    SymphonynSonata Posts: 533 Member
    I would just measure oils, olives, tomatoes etc... IMO the greens are negligible.

    This is what I would do too. Sometimes if i'm being obsessive I'll throw in the general number for the greens with a guesstimate.
  • kethry70
    kethry70 Posts: 404 Member
    When I'm being serious in my efforts, I measure it all. If it's a salad I have often, I still measure it all, but have made recipes so there's a single item to add at mfp.

    This. But I weigh not measure

Categories