Estimating dinner calories: Share your tips!

Omanya
Omanya Posts: 50
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I've been cooking a lot from Angela Nyugen's Asian Tofu (http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Tofu-Discover-Best-Make/dp/1607740257 - these are asian, not 'western', preparations, so these recipes are not vegetarian/vegan for the most part). A lot of the meat and tofu is sliced thinly and cooked in broths and stocks, so it's difficult to tell how much I'm getting. For example, I made Hot and Sour Soup (Suan La Tang) yesterday and knew it had a total of 14 oz of tofu, 10 oz of pork, and a bag of reconstituted tiger lily bulbs, but I had no idea how much I was eating and I wasn't going to dig out the individual slices to weigh them. The consequence is that I don't have a log for dinner, as it's *really* difficult to nust guess.

What to do?

Well, I decided to cook the tofu and, in this case, pork - and any other calorie-dense ingredients, separately and assemble it when I'm actually making a bowl for myself. That way I can weigh them and get an estimate. :3

What are some things you do?

Hot and Sour Soup:
ipxe1y.jpg
Right after I put the pork and tofu slices in to cook.

Next time I'll do it more like this:
140j8me.jpg
(Foxy Tofu Noodle Soup - Kitsune Udon)
Fry the tofu and pork separately from the soup and, in the porkchop's case, cut it before serving. Then either put it all on top of the soup or mix it in.

Replies

  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    Dang it. I posted this in 'maintaining weight' instead of the general weight loss forum. What do I do? Does a mod move it? I don't see a way to delete the thread...
  • AllOutof_Bubblegum
    AllOutof_Bubblegum Posts: 3,646 Member
    You don't estimate. Log the entirety of the ingredients in your "Recipes" and divide how many servings one batch makes. It will automatically portion out the calories for each serving. It's a huge time-saver, and that way you don'r have to guess. I do it with my homemade bread.
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    You don't estimate. Log the entirety of the ingredients in your "Recipes" and divide how many servings one batch makes. It will automatically portion out the calories for each serving. It's a huge time-saver, and that way you don'r have to guess. I do it with my homemade bread.

    I can understand doing that for something relatively equally portioned like bread, but not for something that has very different serving contents like this. It would not be wise at all to asssume that each bowl has an equal or even similar amount of meat/tofu/tigerlillies. For example, the 'sustenance' sank mostly to the bottom, so yesterday's dinner was mostly carbs - and it was difficult to fish out the protein; otherwise I would have done so - but today's lunch was probably more or less equal. I scooped my partner's bowl out after mine, which made his contents closer to the bottom, so he had more protein than I did. Tomorrow for breakfast(leftovers) we'll be at the bottom with mostly protein/far fewer carbs. Thus, I should expect yesterday's meal to have been significantly higher calorie than today's.
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    In other words, I forsee that recipe thing as only messing my counts up, possibly monstrously depending on the soup I make. I really can't assume that the portions are anything close to equal.

    However, I made oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes ealier. I can use it for something like that.
  • runningforthetrain
    runningforthetrain Posts: 1,037 Member
    I add all the calories of every ingredient for the whole recipe. Then I weigh the whole batch-- putting an empty bowl or pan on the scale and zero it out. Add the cooked recipe to the bowl or pan. Then divide the whole calorie count by the total gram or ounce weight so I have cals per ounce.

    Mix the whole batch each time before serving and distribute ingredients evenly as best you can- then weigh-- you have weight and cal per unit weight- multiply- its sounds complicated but, is really quite easy once you get used to it.











    t
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    I don't know if there's any realistic solution to that besides trying to portion the ingredients of the soup as evenly as you can while serving yourself. i.e. getting a spoonful of broth and a spoonful of some meat etc. Of course if you eat the entire thing by yourself over several days then it all evens out over the week.

    Normally I do that. It's just that these recipes aren't easy to divide relatively easy like, say, beef stew might be. So I have to do entirely different methods, which is why I'm going to cook the calorie-dense ingredients separately. They taste better that way, anyway. :p
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    Now I have to wonder how much inappropriately assuming equal or similar calories per serving throws off people's calorie counting. As charredstar pointed out, it doesn't matter if you eat the entire thing yourself, but it does matter if you're dividing it because of the different average densities of the macronutrients and different foods.

    Just curious.
  • Patttience
    Patttience Posts: 975 Member
    I can understand doing that for something relatively equally portioned like bread, but not for something that has very different serving contents like this. It would not be wise at all to asssume that each bowl has an equal or even similar amount of meat/tofu/tigerlillies. For example, the 'sustenance' sank mostly to the bottom, so yesterday's dinner was mostly carbs - and it was difficult to fish out the protein; otherwise I would have done so - but today's lunch was probably more or less equal. I scooped my partner's bowl out after mine, which made his contents closer to the bottom, so he had more protein than I did. Tomorrow for breakfast(leftovers) we'll be at the bottom with mostly protein/far fewer carbs. Thus, I should expect yesterday's meal to have been significantly higher calorie than today's.
    [/quote]

    Don't be so finicky. And Stir the soup before you serve it.
    Secondly, measure out the amount of serves in the whole recipe using a objective measure my like one cup and then serve your own portion based on cup size. If you eat all the recipe over four days or so, it will average out.

    Otherwise you are asking us to do the impossible. The odd calorie count being inexact is not going to change your life. Try to be sensible.
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    Why count calories if I'm not going to be finicky about it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Stirring six quarts of extremely dense soup is not an easy task - and it does not change the density of the contents of the soup or the fact that some things will sink to the bottom. I fished out the meat best I could. "Evening out" is difficult when I'm not the only one eating it.

    Attempting to increase the accuracy is not being insensible. I think that cooking it separately is a good solution. Counting calories is already inherently inaccurate, so getting it as close as possible is in one's best interest, no?
  • Ang108
    Ang108 Posts: 1,711 Member
    I do not only weigh things, but also count slices, or pieces of almost equal size.
    This makes it easy to dish out ( just as an example ) two slices of tofu and two slices or pork for each serving, if I plan to have four servings.
    I live alone and cook all my meals and that is how I stay on top of things and keep my portions as close to the same as I can. .
  • sympha01
    sympha01 Posts: 942 Member
    You don't estimate. Log the entirety of the ingredients in your "Recipes" and divide how many servings one batch makes. It will automatically portion out the calories for each serving. It's a huge time-saver, and that way you don'r have to guess. I do it with my homemade bread.

    I can understand doing that for something relatively equally portioned like bread, but not for something that has very different serving contents like this. It would not be wise at all to asssume that each bowl has an equal or even similar amount of meat/tofu/tigerlillies. For example, the 'sustenance' sank mostly to the bottom, so yesterday's dinner was mostly carbs - and it was difficult to fish out the protein; otherwise I would have done so - but today's lunch was probably more or less equal. I scooped my partner's bowl out after mine, which made his contents closer to the bottom, so he had more protein than I did. Tomorrow for breakfast(leftovers) we'll be at the bottom with mostly protein/far fewer carbs. Thus, I should expect yesterday's meal to have been significantly higher calorie than today's.

    You're over-thinking it. A lot. It'll average out across multiple servings. If you're cooking for a family and not just yourself, it's still pretty reasonable to assume your servings will be average, especially if you ladle reasonably mindfully.

    Long-term success isn't about perfection. It's about intention, mindfulness, and finding a balance between discipline and enjoyment.

    ETA -- I weigh all my food, I use the recipe builder (and I edit the recipes with new weights every time I return to an old recipe), and when I'm pre-logging (most of the time) I am planning my day out to within the last 20 calories of goal and 5 grams of protein. I believe in quantification and accuracy -- just not stressing needlessly.
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    Why count calories if I'm not going to be finicky about it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Stirring six quarts of extremely dense soup is not an easy task - and it does not change the density of the contents of the soup or the fact that some things will sink to the bottom. I fished out the meat best I could. "Evening out" is difficult when I'm not the only one eating it.

    Attempting to increase the accuracy is not being insensible. I think that cooking it separately is a good solution. Counting calories is already inherently inaccurate, so getting it as close as possible is in one's best interest, no?

    Strive to be as accurate as is reasonably possible. But this is one of those cases where, as the saying goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

    Make a recipe with the ingredients, use a stock pot or Dutch oven whose volume you know, estimate the total volume of the soup, use a ladle of known capacity to serve it up, and give the soup as good a stir you can immediately before serving. The result will be a reasonably accurate number. Sure, it might be off by 25 calories, but in the world of estimating calorie intake - and that's all we're doing, estimating - a 25-calorie error is a lot better than giving up entirely and underestimating by 200.
  • popslice
    popslice Posts: 22


    You're over-thinking it. A lot. It'll average out across multiple servings. If you're cooking for a family and not just yourself, it's still pretty reasonable to assume your servings will be average, especially if you ladle reasonably mindfully.

    Long-term success isn't about perfection. It's about intention, mindfulness, and finding a balance between discipline and enjoyment.


    This exactly. If I make a pot of something that I know I will be the only one eating, then no big deal because the calories will average out as I eat it. If I am making something that is to be shared, I just make sure that I take an average portion - give it a good stir and make sure that the ingredients are represented in roughly the proper proportions. Personally, I try not to lose sleep over it. That way lies madness, frustration, fatigue, and ultimately giving up. My success has been much greater when I am mindful but not obsessed.

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