How to log scratch made meals?

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Pennies95
Pennies95 Posts: 6
in Getting Started
I cook nearly entirely from scratch. My meal tonight was broccoli cheese soup with baked potatoes. The night before, a venison stew containing lots from our garden. This has kept me from logging my food intake regularly, because I am just guessing. Suggestions appreciated!

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  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
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    use the recipe builder and enter all the ingredients in there and then log it when you eat that recipe….
  • jess_bazley
    jess_bazley Posts: 1
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    If you go to the more section of the app you can select My recipes and foods and then hit the + sign and you can enter ingredients manually including amounts and how many serves
  • Pennies95
    Pennies95 Posts: 6
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    I guess that means you actually need to measure when you cook :) I cook for a family of 6 and haven't measured in 10 or more years. I'll try to start measuring ingredients and write them down.
  • kpk54
    kpk54 Posts: 4,474 Member
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    I cook just about every evening also. I find using the recipe builder is easier than importing recipes most of the time. I don't usually bother entering spices and herbs (except salt). It is time consuming.
  • perseverance14
    perseverance14 Posts: 1,364 Member
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    Weigh solids, measure liquids.
  • Pennies95
    Pennies95 Posts: 6
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    I went out to eat for lunch and it was SO easy to enter in the meal. I looked at the recipe builder. I would have to figure out the recipe (I cook by feel/look, not by something written) and then input it. That is hugely time consuming for 30 or more recipes. Yikes. Hmm.... This may not be for me.
  • perseverance14
    perseverance14 Posts: 1,364 Member
    edited March 2015
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    When I cook something and want to log the recipe, I weigh the solids measure the liquids of what I am putting in and jot it down on a pad as I go, I log it later on, like you could get dinner going and log it in while it is cooking. Also if there are recipes you make a lot, you can use them over and over and you can edit them if you change any ingredients.
  • AyaRowan
    AyaRowan Posts: 80 Member
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    Indeed, you'll have to measure when you cook. The most accurate way to measure is to buy a food scale and go via weight. Here's some tips according to how I do my own recipes:

    1) Keep a kitchen notebook. On the first page, before you do anything else, make a list of all your most commonly used bowls, pans, and other utensils. It's extremely easy to forget to weigh something beforehand, so if you put a couple handfuls of broccoli into a pan for stirfry and forgot to measure it then you can just put it on the scale and subtract the weight of the pan from your notebook to figure out the amount.

    2) Measuring via a digital food scale can save you from doing more dishes. For example, place a pan on the stove and zero out the scale. Add broccoli, take note of the number, then zero it out again. Add chopped carrot, write it down, then zero it out. Add diced onion, zero it out. No measuring cups needed and the calorie counts are far more accurate. Olive oil? No need for a measuring spoon where tons of oil stays behind in the spoon, just pour it into the pan and measure the grams.

    3) Get large round corkboard coasters on which to set hot pans (check the flower or fake flower section if you can't find them elsewhere). You can use a potholder but I prefer the cork. You can use these after your recipe is done cooking so that you can weigh the final product. For example, a big pot of stew. Place down the corkboard to protect the scale itself from the heat, zero out the scale, then carefully move the pan onto the scale and take off any lids and remove utensils. Reference your kitchen notebook and subtract the weight of the pan to get the overall weight of the recipe. From there, you weigh the amount you take out and if you tracked all ingredients you put into the pan originally, you'll be able to get your calorie count.

    4) Remember to never weigh things that are non-food. Digital scales allow you to zero out the scale, so be sure you use this properly to avoid accidentally including the weight of spoons, bowls, pot holders.

    5) If you added more weight to the scale and the number didn't change when you think it should have, press down lightly on the scale to force it to update its number.

    Alternatively if you want to go the measuring cup and measuring spoon route, your calorie count will be less accurate but still better than not measuring at all. Measure and write down everything, then calculate your portion size. For instance, transferring the food to a bowl or pitcher that is marked to indicate cups or oz can help you estimate how many portions it made.
  • cosmo_momo
    cosmo_momo Posts: 173 Member
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    Weigh every ingredient and use this website to find accurate calorie content: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods

    A lot of this stuff is in MFP already, but you have to weed through items that are inaccurately filled out. I like to put "usda" after my search items. Like "apple usda grams".
  • sianlr87
    sianlr87 Posts: 72 Member
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    AyaRowan wrote: »
    1) Keep a kitchen notebook. On the first page, before you do anything else, make a list of all your most commonly used bowls, pans, and other utensils. It's extremely easy to forget to weigh something beforehand, so if you put a couple handfuls of broccoli into a pan for stirfry and forgot to measure it then you can just put it on the scale and subtract the weight of the pan from your notebook to figure out the amount.

    This is a simple yet brilliant idea! I am constantly forgetting to weigh something before I stick in a pan or bowl etc. Will be doing this!

  • howekaren
    howekaren Posts: 159 Member
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    Pennies if you're committed to counting, then it's a necessary evil. Once the recipe is in there, it's done and you know for next time. It's time consuming at first, but recipes you use over and over are done. Even for a pot of soup, the first time you enter it you may throw in more carrots than the next time, but it's very easily adjusted in the recipe builder. Servings may be approximate but it's far more accurate than just guessing. I seldom measure as such, but once I chop up an ingredient I weigh it, and a recipe may have to be adjusted for what I have on hand, but I'd sooner do that than underestimate what I'm eating. I find for things like banana bread, I weigh the cooked product. If it is 20 ounces, then I count that as 20 servings. Then I weigh a slice. If a slice is 3 ounces, I say I ate 3 servings. If I make pita breads, I know it makes 10 servings, so I weigh the raw dough. If the dough weighs 20 ounces, I divide the dough into 2 ounce balls for a fairly accurate calorie count of each bread. If I make protein cookies and one batch makes 20 cookies but the next time it makes 21, I adjust the recipe builder for that batch. I've been doing it for a few years now so I have quite a recipe base built up. I vastly prefer to make my own food, and this is how I know what I am eating.
  • Pennies95
    Pennies95 Posts: 6
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    Just to update-- I decided that this type of calorie counting was not worth it. It turns food and meals into an enemy which isn't good (for me at least). Food should be a part of nourishing your body, not something to battle with weighing and counting at each meal. Thanks for it the information. Hopefully it will help someone else with the same question in the future.
  • November_Fire
    November_Fire Posts: 165 Member
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    That's fine, but if you're back in a month complaining you can't lose weight, the answer will be "you're eating too much at dinner" :)

    I cook from scratch too. It's really no hassle. I sit down with a cup of tea, I type in "200g sainsbury pasta, 150g tuna, 150g tomatoes..." - I omit spices, no one ever got fat off spices - and it's about, what 7 or 8 things? Remember the oil. Then it matches them all up. I click '4 servings'. I serve myself a quarter of what I make. Best of all? It's saved. I only have to do it once. Next time I eat Emberlain's Tuna Pasta special, it's right there in recipes waiting for me.
  • SyntonicGarden
    SyntonicGarden Posts: 944 Member
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    perseverance14 wrote: »
    Weigh solids, measure liquids.

    THIS. She's spot on. Weighing solids is the way to go. You can have two separate cups of something - berries, rice, sugar, shredded cheese - and they'll both fit in the measuring cup, but if you measure them, they can be different by a considerable amount. Might not be a big deal for a head of lettuce, but could be a huge difference when measuring cheese.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    If you don't already have a food scale, I would get one that weighs up to 10 kg (22 lb) or even more. I have one ($15 on Amazon). This way you can put your bowl or pan on it and just dump the ingredients in, weighing and hitting tare after each addition, until you have the entire recipe in there. The only thing this doesn't work with is the crock from my crock pot, it is too big and heavy so I need to use a separate bowl, then dump the bowl into the crock.

    If I am doing a "by guess and by golly" dish, I jot down each thing as I add them, then enter the recipe in the builder later. It also helps to remember what I did if I really liked it or it needed a couple of tweaks.
  • maggymouse
    maggymouse Posts: 15 Member
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    If you want to succeed in losing weight, then you have to control the calories you're putting in your mouth - the only way to do that is to measure what you eat. I cook from scratch about 95% of the time, using my own recipes - once they're put in they're saved so you can always go back to them. I also make weekly meal plans for dinner so I know how many cals I have left over for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Nothing worse than putting in your dinner after you've eaten it to find that you're well over for the day. Good luck, it may be time-consuming to start with but you gained weight through 'guessing' quantities, so it's worth it in the end. SyntonicGarden, you'll find that the cup measure on the site take account of the differing weights/volumes of ingredients.

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