Not sure how many calories to log for my salad

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katewright699
katewright699 Posts: 28
in Food and Nutrition
Hi everyone, just a bit of advice please.i always have salad with my dinner and find it hard to know how many calories to log it for as I just make a salad for the whole family and we each have a portion of it. A typical salad for me consists of... Lettuce,cucumber,cherry tomatoes,celery,whole red pepper chopped up,spring onions and pickled gherkins chopped up. I don't usually have any dressing just vinegar and pepper.and a usual portion is probably just over a quarter of a dinner plate,any suggestions on what the calorie count would be for this please :)

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  • Redheadllena
    Redheadllena Posts: 353 Member
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    I'd recommend making a recipe for it (on MFP under 'Food' on your web browser) - you can measure and log the total ingredients for the salad, then measure out how many portions it serves to get a pretty accurate calorie count :)
  • Susieq_1994
    Susieq_1994 Posts: 5,361 Member
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    When I make a salad, I make it into a recipe using the recipe builder, weigh all the vegetables and add them to the recipe, then split it into 2 servings (It's just me and my husband). Then as long as everyone's portion is around the same size, your calorie count will be accurate.

    ETA: The poster above me beat me to it :)
  • gizmo_2014
    gizmo_2014 Posts: 37
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    You could plug it into the recipe builder and then estimate the portion of it that you eat. That is normally what I do.

    There wouldn't be many calories if you do not use normal dressing. The pickles would add a decent amount of sodium which is something to ensure is logged.
  • katewright699
    katewright699 Posts: 28
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    Lovely ... Thanks guys :)
  • laurie04427
    laurie04427 Posts: 421 Member
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    What I did was go through the trouble of trying to sort out the quantity of the ingredients generally and listed it all out for my meal one day, then saved it as a meal in the app. Easy enough to tweak slightly in the future if you need to because it will still list everything out.

    Could probably save it as a recipe I imagine as well. Just saves time. It doesn't have much calories so for me anyhow I'm okay with it not being exact.
  • sfbaumgarten
    sfbaumgarten Posts: 912 Member
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    Not sure. You could use the database to guestimate those ingredients. If I were you I'd weigh the ingredients and figure it up once for reference, then either make it a recipe or just quick log it after that. It wouldn't be completely accurate, but if you're really just eating a small portion of a few veggies every night with dinner, I wouldn't be TOO worried about it. If you find that your weight loss stalls, that's when I'd take a closer look at things like this. Otherwise, just carry on...
  • Pirate_chick
    Pirate_chick Posts: 1,216 Member
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    I weigh and log each ingredient. it's time consuming, but worth it.
  • civilizedworm
    civilizedworm Posts: 796 Member
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    By weight is always the most accurate, but we are talking about a salad here. The greens and veggies you use are not very caloric dense. If you add any type of meat, dairy or egg or dressing (especially the dressing), then I think you'd want to be more precise on those. Really though, a swing by 10 or 20 calories (wether you know it or not) will not be a big deal breaker.

    I'd still log it however.
  • katewright699
    katewright699 Posts: 28
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    Great thankyou guys :) x
  • Bianca42
    Bianca42 Posts: 310 Member
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    I log each item separately, estimating the amounts for the veggies...since they aren't all that many calories if I'm off a bit. I do measure out my dressing or any meat/cheese/seeds/olives that I add.

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