How to calculate home cooked foods.

albali
albali Posts: 225 Member
edited September 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi
Sorry, I don't know if this message is in the right place but I was wondering how I should go about calculating some of the foods I eat. Today I made roasted veg and broccoli cheese to put in the freezer. I know how much half fat cheese, low fat milk etc I used, but obviously I won't know exactly what proportion of the whole dish I will eat. So do I need to calculate a guesstimate and work out the individual ingredients? or do I just search on 'broccoli' and then 'cheese sauce', which won't take into account the low fat ingredients?? Arghhh! Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks.

Replies

  • yankeefamily05
    yankeefamily05 Posts: 657 Member
    Go into tools and you can use the recipe estimator:) One of my favorite mfp features!!!
  • ChelseaRW
    ChelseaRW Posts: 366 Member
    When you go into Food tab, go to recipes, add a new recipe and add all the ingredients into your own recipe database. You name it, say how many servings are in it, and list each ingredient...the website will do all of the hard work for you...it is my new found friend and the best way to get accuracy.
  • hgellings
    hgellings Posts: 295 Member
    I use the recipe calculator, but then I have to guess what a serving size is because it doesn't tell you that. I always make to sure to take less than what I think a serving is so I hopefully don't go over on cals.
  • hroush
    hroush Posts: 2,073 Member
    Really exact way:
    I would say first you should get a scale so that you know exactly how much of each item you are using. You can then create a recipe and add all the items to that recipe (set 1 for serving). When you are going to have it for a meal, weigh how much of it you're going to eat (if you don't eat it all, weigh how much is left). You can now enter the recipe in your food diary and divide the weight that you ate by the weight for the entire recipe (will be a decimal).

    Not so exact way (way I do it):
    create recipe using generic options for veges (1 carrot, etc.) and what ever else you add. Guestimate how many meals this will last and enter that as servings. Add one serving to food diary each time you eat it. If the serving size isn't correct, you can go in to the recipe and change, but if you want your food diary to be accurate, you'd have to go back and delete and re-add the recipe.
  • rfcollins33
    rfcollins33 Posts: 630 Member
    yep, love the recipe calculator. If you make it again, you can just pull it up and put it on your diary.
  • kkellam1
    kkellam1 Posts: 182 Member
    I agree. I use it several times a week to record recipes. You just need to decide when you are creating the recipe (doing the cooking) what a portion will be. Stuff like lasganas or soups, etc are easy to determine that on because you can decide how many cuts or how many cups. Tupperware will be your best friend, because then you can portion control it after cooking. You can always eat more or less than a portion, but you will know exactly what to record in your food diary.

    For example, I make soups. I typically use 10 portions as my target and just set out 10 tupperware containers and portion until all are equal. Knowing that going into the cooking, I record each ingredient as I add it and keep a running total per portion. That way, I can have a pretty good idea if the total for each portion will be near or under my target.
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