Olive oil: how do you track it

Actually, oil is super high calorie so you should definitely try to track it! To not have to give up the splashing and twirling, I'd suggest weighing the bottle before you use the oil and after, and logging the difference in grams. The USDA entry lets you log it in grams.

Spend some time experimenting so you have some idea of how much is in a splash or a twirl. It won't be exact, but you'll get closer.

I've calibrated my eye like this for a few things. I know what 2 tablespoons of peanut butter look like (it looks like yum). I know what 10 vs. 12 oz of milk looks like in the glasses we use.

Measure it out, then splash it around with some other utensil.

languageSteph wrote: »

I am a splasher and a twirler. I could measure the olive oil I use but part of the fun is splashing and twirling the bottle around when I out it in a pan or on a salad. The thing is, this fun method has no equiv in MFP, so what's a gal to do? How do U track your olive oil? Even if you use a TB OR tsp, if u cook with it and some evaporates or is absorbed, does that really count the same?

I am fully aware how nit picky I am being and that my use of olive oil is NOT what got me or my fat rolls here. But I am curious all the same. Thx in advance for ur input.

If you are cooking at a high enough temperature for your olive oil to "evaporate" you would be burning your food so badly I would think it would be inedible.

As for being "absorbed," what kind of material are you cooking things in that they would absorb oil? If the food absorbs the oil, you're eating it. Or do you mean that you drain your food on towels? If it's the latter, you may lose a very small percentage of the oil you put in the pan to the towels. Unless you're deep frying, or seeing enough oil left in the pan that it pools and can be poured back out of the pan (rather than just being a film on the pan), I think you're talking about a calorie difference that's well within the usual margin of error involving in measuring and tracking.

Alaterial's idea of weighing the bottle before and after is a good one, assuming you have a scale that weighs in grams (one that measures only in ounces or even half ounces just isn't exact enough for a food that has about 120 calories in a half ounce -- that means every measurement could be off by as much as 60 calories for olive oil, since the scale has to round all those in between weights up or down).

Edited to fix typo.

languageSteph wrote: »

I am a splasher and a twirler. I could measure the olive oil I use but part of the fun is splashing and twirling the bottle around when I out it in a pan or on a salad. The thing is, this fun method has no equiv in MFP, so what's a gal to do? How do U track your olive oil? Even if you use a TB OR tsp, if u cook with it and some evaporates or is absorbed, does that really count the same?

I am fully aware how nit picky I am being and that my use of olive oil is NOT what got me or my fat rolls here. But I am curious all the same. Thx in advance for ur input.

Well, adding unknown amounts of oil is part of what got you fat. My tablespoon of olive oil is around 120 calories. A couple of tablespoons every day could be kind of significant. Is fun more important than weight loss?
Just measure it out and log what you add.
If you measure before you add it, you could measure what is left in the pan after to see how much was absorbed

ana3067 wrote: »

JoRocka wrote: »

with a scale.

Can't weigh volume. Should be using measuring spoons. Only oil I weight is coconut.

Nobody is telling her to "weigh a volume." They're telling her to track the oil by weight. A gram of oil has exactly the same calories as *drumroll* a gram of oil. If you measure by weight, and log by weight, there isn't a problem.

ana3067 wrote: »

never2bstopped wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

never2bstopped wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

never2bstopped wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

jddnw wrote: »

ZenSakura wrote: »

Hmm...if you have a food scale you could measure it by grams. Weigh the bottle with the oil in it, splash and twirl to your heart's content, and then weigh the bottle again. Subtract the second weight from the first weight, and you should have the amount of grams you used.

I hadn't thought of this before. I like it.

No, use measuring spoons.

Why?

Serous question.

Because

ana3067 wrote: »

JoRocka wrote: »

with a scale.

Can't weigh volume. Should be using measuring spoons. Only oil I weight is coconut.

Measure liquids, weigh solids

But you can measure a volume and then weigh it and use that weight as your measurement. Is there a reason this wouldn't work?

Why bother doing that when you can just enter the volume used...

Because it was the best way to account for the way the op wanted to cook.

Also half a tsp is supposed to be about 2ml but when I used to weigh my pool and log 2ml it didn't give me the same calories as the measures entry does. This was using the same entry I had made myself, only altered the serving to change from ml to tsp.

That's odd, I wonder why that would be.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your experience.

One of my food scales even indicates that the weight of oils will be off by 10%. Better to just use a measuring spoon.

1) OP doesn't want to use a measuring spoon; she wants to be able to "twirl."
2) Odds are your volume measures are off by 10% too.
3) There are MFP entries based on USDA database entries for olive oil that include both weight and volume measures. (They are likely more accurate than your self-created entry which apparently doesn't give you the same results when change from ml to tsp, which, by the way, are both volume measures, so weighing your oil and logging it in mls makes no sense. It's not water.)

Edited to change list from letters to numbers, since B followed by a ) is apparently a sunglass-wearing emoticon.