Homemade foods, estimating calories

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karma9799
karma9799 Posts: 3
in Food and Nutrition
I do a lot of cooking for myself, and most of the recipies I use were hand-me-downs from my mom and grandma. I have no idea how to calculate calories for these types of foods... I've seen some "homemade" items on the food lists but I don't know if they are accurate for what I've made. For example, I've got no idea how much of anything goes into my mom's spaghetti sauce, it's all visual ("use enough basil so you see it in the sauce"). Should I just use whatever homemade recipes I find on the food list? Or should I enter in each ingredient separately? Arggh.

Replies

  • PediNurse67
    PediNurse67 Posts: 66 Member
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    Enter everything seperately. You only have to do it one time & then it's saved as your recipe. It really is the most accurate way. You'll never really know what ingredients others are using.
  • Losing2Live69
    Losing2Live69 Posts: 743 Member
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    Use the recipe tab under the food category. It lets you enter in all the ingredients and it figures the total of everything and then you put how many servings it is and it figures everything per serving too. It is wonderful. It saves all your recipes so you can access them after you put them in.
  • sapiers
    sapiers Posts: 14
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    most spices, basil, etc... are zero calories or close enough to not matter so really you only need to concentrate on the "larger" items, tomatos, onions, etc...generally it makes it pretty easy just total up the ingredients and go from there as far as portion size.
  • Daisy374
    Daisy374 Posts: 539 Member
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    When I make my own recipe I enter each ingredient separately.. Maybe the next time you make something try measuring it as you put it in.. Just keep track if you have to add more of an ingredient. But depending on the recipe, I sometimes prefer to add my own recipes to my food list than use someone else's homemade one.. just for the fact that their recipe may not be the same as mine. Hope this helps you some...
  • darwintheboxer
    darwintheboxer Posts: 51
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    Under the food tab, select the recipe tab and add new recipe. It takes some time to build up your recipe box but is extremely useful for frequent homemade meals.
  • meagalayne
    meagalayne Posts: 3,382 Member
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    I make most everything from scratch and all my recipes are entered in the recipe calculator on MFP. It takes a little extra effort but it's more accurate and it's worth it, IMO to know what you're eating. Either divide the final dish into portioned servings or measure out the total volume in cups and figure out how many calories per cup the dish would have.
  • KickassYas
    KickassYas Posts: 397 Member
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    Use the recipe tab under the food category. It lets you enter in all the ingredients and it figures the total of everything and then you put how many servings it is and it figures everything per serving too. It is wonderful. It saves all your recipes so you can access them after you put them in.

    The Recipe Tool is hands down my favorite part of this site because I'm a huge home cooked kinda girl. I create the recipes, I don't usually share them because I change them often depending on whats in my fridge and the calculations are almost always accurate. :) You'll find it under your FOOD tab "Recipes" then the green button "Create a Recipe" (i thnk)
  • karma9799
    karma9799 Posts: 3
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    Thanks for the replies. I think I might be a little afraid to know what some of these recipes wind up being, calorie wise! :)
  • sh0ck
    sh0ck Posts: 168 Member
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    Enter everything seperately. You only have to do it one time & then it's saved as your recipe. It really is the most accurate way. You'll never really know what ingredients others are using.


    Yea, this is the best (and a very AWESOME) way to do things. Enter in stuff separately exactly how you make the recipe under the recipe tab in your food diary and then just add it in to your meals as you eat it.

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