Portions in Recipes

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Basilin
Basilin Posts: 360 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been struggling figuring out how to accurately count the calories etc. in portions of food from recipes. Currently I've been trying to do it by weighing out all the ingredients that go into the recipe and then assuming a serving is a particular fraction of the total volume of the food prepared, and multiplying that fraction by each ingredient to come up with the numbers for a serving. This gets really complicated and seems inaccurate. I'm having a similar issue with marinades.

Are there any suggestions of methods for calculating nutritional content of portions of food from your own recipes?

Thanks!

Replies

  • gidget1988
    gidget1988 Posts: 8 Member
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    You can use the My Recipes section in MFP. I have done this by adding all the ingredients and then you state how many people the recipe serves.
    I do a lot of crockpot meals. I usually have 6-8 servings per meal. MFP does all the math.

    Hope that helps.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Weigh all your ingredients, enter them in the recipe builder. Weigh the food once it's cooked, and enter the number of grams as the serving size... then just weigh your food and enter your portion's weight as the number of servings.

    It's never going to be completely accurate, as your portion might have more or less of each ingredients, but it's the most accurate way. You can guess that there are 6 servings etc though, but it leaves too much guesswork for me.
  • Pspetal
    Pspetal Posts: 426 Member
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    I measure ingredients by volume. Unless it's something like pasta or shrimp, those I weigh. I put the volumes/weights down in the recipe builder in MFP and let it calculate the total calories. At the end, after I'm done cooking, I empty the contents of the pot to another one cup-by-cup.

    If my recipe yielded 10.5 cups, I put it down as serves 10.5 people. Also, I ALWAYS keep 1 serving = 1 cup for everything. So if I have 1/2 a cup of rice, I add it as half a serving.

    This is the quickest and easiest way IMO. I have about 150 recipes in my recipes tab. I mostly repeat those. Once I've made a particular dish and entered the ingredient amounts and calculated calories per cup, I almost never do it again if I am repeating that recipe, unless I'm going to substantially alter it. I've found that each time I make it, there's only a 10-20 calorie difference from the last time.
  • Basilin
    Basilin Posts: 360 Member
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    Ok, thank you... I didn't know the recipe builder did that. I'll definitely use it now!

    Also thanks for not teasing the MFP n00b. :embarassed:
  • Jreeves9210
    Jreeves9210 Posts: 19 Member
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    I add up all the calories / macros (in my case) of all the ingredients, weigh the finished product and distribute calories through the weight. doesn't work as well for watery ingredients. I enjoy it though, so i don't mind. Certainly not the easiest method at times though
  • chaos416
    chaos416 Posts: 89 Member
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    Someone put me onto the fact that the recipe builder on the lower RH of the recipe page is the "old" builder and it is much easier to use.

    Also, I just did this the other day: I entered my recipe as 1 serving then I weighed my finished product (coleslaw) at 358 grams or whatever and made a note in my food diary. So when I weigh out a serving of 58g then I just do the math 58/358 and enter that as the amount I had.

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