Converting our own recipes serving size concerns.

Things don't weigh the same when cooked, so enter everything raw (if possible) then weigh everything cooked, and put that as the amount of servings.

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Now I know why people just eat everything prepackaged at least you already know the nutrition label

I tend to cook individual servings. Even packaging is not entirely accurate. You can buy something that says a serving is 32 grams and there's one serving, but then you weigh it and it's 40 grams.

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Now I know why people just eat everything prepackaged at least you already know the nutrition label

This isn't necessary at all. The recipe builder tool is designed for exactly this purpose.

Enter your raw ingredients to get the total calories for the recipe. When you eat it you can either take the total weight of your finished dish and work our your serving size from there (eg 100g serving of 400g total weight), or you can state that it makes four portions and eat 1/4 of the finished dish.

It's really not hard!

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Now I know why people just eat everything prepackaged at least you already know the nutrition label

It really isn't that difficult. Do it once and as long as you follow the recipe it will be close enough for future batches. Also realize prepacked stuff is often wrong. By that I mean say a pre-made frozen dinner may say that one of them is say 300 calories, but if you compare the weigh you quickly realize that many of them weigh far more than they are supposed to, largely because in most places companies will be fined for having less than they say will be in the package, but generally if they are over that is fine. In other words, you still have difficulties even with prepackaged meals.

pebble4321 wrote: »

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Now I know why people just eat everything prepackaged at least you already know the nutrition label

This isn't necessary at all. The recipe builder tool is designed for exactly this purpose.

Enter your raw ingredients to get the total calories for the recipe. When you eat it you can either take the total weight of your finished dish and work our your serving size from there (eg 100g serving of 400g total weight), or you can state that it makes four portions and eat 1/4 of the finished dish.

It's really not hard!

Exactly this. I do not weigh anything if I'm making it from my own recipe. I just put in all my ingredients, decide how many servings I want to get out of the dish (usually, I just do this by putting in the different amounts until I hit a good equilibrium between amount of food, calories, and how many days I can stretch the dish out for lol) and then I just eat what I'm allotted on each day until the food is gone. It is also really helpful if you have multiple tupperwares and can pre-portion everything out that same day.

So I may make a pot of chili, put the raw ingredients into the calculator, decide that I want 10 servings of chili out of it, put that into the recipe calculator, portion out ten tupperwares with equal amounts of chili, and away I go. I can eat my tupperware full of food for a meal, put a single serving size into my diary and not have to worry about it.

Once you get the hang of it, it's simple, fast and easy. Basically the same effort of eating prepackaged, if you count the time you spend shopping for packaged meals that are actually nutritious and not too high in sodium lol.

pebble4321 wrote: »

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Now I know why people just eat everything prepackaged at least you already know the nutrition label

This isn't necessary at all. The recipe builder tool is designed for exactly this purpose.

Enter your raw ingredients to get the total calories for the recipe. When you eat it you can either take the total weight of your finished dish and work our your serving size from there (eg 100g serving of 400g total weight), or you can state that it makes four portions and eat 1/4 of the finished dish.

It's really not hard!

That is what I do. I never weighted the cooked meal; the pot would not fit on top of the scale and it would probably burn it too, but above all, and in my opinion, it will be an overkill.

For soups and stews one serving = two full ladles (what ever that is in grams).

For chili and meatloaf I always use 16lbs ground of beef or turkey and I know that I will get me four servings, regardless of the weight. If they are too big or if I don't want to eat the full serving, then I just log what I ate (1/2 or 1/4 serving).

Nothing in life is precise so why worry about it.

Ceeceeann wrote: »

Sorry you felt my post wasn't nessecary but I needed help I thought that was the purpose of forums but apparently not

I didn't mean your post was not necessary... but that only eating prepackaged food wasn't necessary!

Oh. what Alatariel said.