Licks & nibbles & tastes

I never bothered tbh, but to cover it in some way what I did was say when logging a small slice of cake for example I would double up the calories - its always better to over estimate imo.

I used to ignore it. But I've realized the grocery store bites of cheese, tortilla chips and half a cookie really add up. I might add a small portion of a meal I'm preparing to cover the tastes. If I'm at a restaurant I do the same. It's all an estimate..but what I find is that after reviewing my log, it's a ton of extra calories and lots of tastes! And I needed to count them.

Stop eating other people's food...just kidding! You can, but I would leave extra calories at the end of the day to account for it.

But then again, I am a "sloppy logger" lol I don't log with precision. For the most part, I weigh all my food and then round up to the next nearest 5 grams on everything and log that higher weight. This gives me leeway throughout the week to continue my Sloppy Logging Practice, and to not have to account for any little inaccuracies in my logging (although I'm personally not a fan of licks, tastes, nibbles, or sharing food with other people as I prefer to just eat what is on my own plate)

I have to taste as I cook, so I just log an extra 10% or so for my serving for that meal. Example - for mac & cheese I'll take 90g but log 100g.

For other things, if it's just one or two nibbles, I'll let it go. I kind of have a rule that I don't have to log if I limit to 1 little bite. If I go back for more I have to log. This usually keeps me from going back over and over. Stupid, i know, but if I go to the effort of logging it, then I figure I might as well have a little more!

I'll log 150-200 cals for a Costco trip if I sample high cal items (fruit or veg get a pass). Or if its a potluck situation and I want to try a few bites of things that look interesting I'll log a quarter of a serving or a larger portion if I'm having something else that's similar (like 1.25 servings potato salad if I'm also trying a bite of a pasta salad).

Those stupid things sure do add up. Whenever I'm getting stuck I crack down on my logging and it's always the pretzel here or couple of chips there that sneak up on me.

It depends on how many taste's/bites/nibbles. I had 3 little bites of ice cream this afternoon and probably won't count that. But if I had had much more, I probably would have.

I think it was Gail Simmons who was once asked how she keeps so slim when she's a judge for Top Chef and other Food/Wine events. She said she's there to TASTE stuff. That means a couple bites. Anything more than 3 bites is actually eating.

Do the best you can with trying to be realistic when you log. I'd say if it's over 100 calories, it counts...but that's just an "out there grasping at straws" number.

If I weigh out some yogurt, I don't lick the spoon afterwards (unless I tared out the container and weighed from it vs. weighing into the bowl because then the yogurt on the spoon is part of the grams I took out of the container). As for tastes of other people's food, like a stray french fry here or there, I will quick add 25 calories per bite.

Maybe it sounds obsessive, but overall, thinking of it as something that still has to be logged means I pretty much never take bites/licks/tastes - even when cooking unless we're talking about a very small sample of something like a low calorie sauce. I know what my typical recipes taste like. New ones are more of a surprise, and I figure out after what I would like to change. I weigh all my ingredients ahead of time anyway, so I don't generally start adding a dash of this or a scoop of that once I start assembling.

When I cook I always taste my food. To account for the taste I just portion less of the serving size onto my plate, but I log the whole amount as what I've eaten.

So if the portion is 130 grams I will put 120 grams on my plate to account for the taste test.

I never ever try samples... I just think of all the dirty hands in there lol I'm also throwing left overs, kids half eaten treats to the dogs a lot quicker than I would have ever before!