I want to make chilli help!

lovinmamaxo
lovinmamaxo Posts: 368 Member
edited September 26 in Food and Nutrition
Not only can i not figure out the recipe creator because it doesn't give exact items i need nor amounts but all my ingredients are FULL sodium i bought a huge stash of canned goods before i started my lifestyle change so what should i do now? Without the recipe calculator how am i going to figure out exactly what i am eating?

Replies

  • christina_theresa
    christina_theresa Posts: 290 Member
    Whenever I make Chili I use dry beans and boil my own. That really cuts back on the sodium a lot! I paid about $1.00 for a bag of dried beans so they are pretty inexpensive.
  • bethrs
    bethrs Posts: 664 Member
    The recipe function usually has most my foods, but you may need to add data from individual ingredients as though you were adding a new food to MFP then use those "new" foods in the recipe- sounds annoying tho. Have you tried Spark Recipes calculator?
  • MomBod81
    MomBod81 Posts: 47 Member
    Rinsing the beans really well (if you are using canned) can help reduce the sodium
  • sing1998
    sing1998 Posts: 38 Member
    keep trying to figure out the recipe tool! it takes time and sometimes you have to try over and over again. for some reason it gets to where it won't accept your portion or some such detail. i've learned how and i'm very low tech! you can do it! otherwise, just try to give a ball park estimate of how much of each ingredient you're putting in and figure it yourself. and you thought that math was never useful! :)
    part of the lifestyle change is learning how much we're truly putting into our body. don't beat yourself up if you can't go healthy all at once. make small changes. if i eat alot of sodium i really push the water to flush it out. i've gradually retrained my taste buds for certain more healthy choices but some things i can't do without. oh, well! i'm still better than i used to be.
  • AZKristi
    AZKristi Posts: 1,801 Member
    You can always add your foods to the database. If you make the foods you enter available for all users, they will be available to enter in your recipe. As far as sodium, just use what you have and buy low sodium canned goods next time (unless your doctor has advised you to follow a strict no sodium diet). Sodium isn't going to have a huge impact on weight loss other than a bit of water weight which is very temporary.

    If you can, I recommend buying fresh beans whenever possible.
  • deadmittens
    deadmittens Posts: 536 Member
    There are general guides about chili and homemade stuff, but you will just have to measure. Either that or buy chili in a can.

    I bought some vegetarian chili in a can at Trader Joe's and can't seem to make myself eat it :\
  • liveinbliss
    liveinbliss Posts: 108 Member
    If everything is canned and has nutritional labels you can figure it out without the recipe calculator...sadly it will be a lot of calculations. Add up the calories, fat, carbs and proteins of all of the items and then divide it by the number of servings. Say you end up with 8 cups of chili you could divide by eight to give you the serving size. Good luck! I wouldn't worry about the sodium until you get your current stash used up just be aware that you might not see much of a change in the scale while you hold onto the extra water...no worries because that will go away when your sodium goes down.
  • nickscutie
    nickscutie Posts: 303 Member
    you can always donate unwanted food to a food bank if it is really something you shouldn't or don't want to eat.
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