Restaurant calories

bettycooker
bettycooker Posts: 29 Member
edited November 19 in Health and Weight Loss
How do I check calories for restaurants?

Replies

  • DresdenSinn
    DresdenSinn Posts: 665 Member
    The MFP food database has a pretty extensive list of restaurant foods. You can also google the particular restaurant for it's menu's nutritional facts but may have mixed success.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,336 Member
    Go to the restaurant's website, ask while there, or in the case of small independent ones, pick something you think is close, or guess.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited June 2017
    I find that Googling the restaurant's name followed by "nutrition" will bring up the nutritional information for their food if it's available. In North America, chains with over 20 locations have to provide that information.

    For restaurants that aren't part of chains, your best bet is to find a comparable item at a chain and log that instead. If you can't do that, use the recipe builder, but it's usually advised to add an extra 1-2 tbsp oil or butter to the listing (unless you're *absolutely sure* of the recipe) to account for the fact that restaurant food tends to have a lot of hidden fat - extra basting with butter, cooking with more oil than you'd ever imagine, etc. You might also want to add an extra 1 tsp salt if you care about tracking sodium intake.
  • bettycooker
    bettycooker Posts: 29 Member
    Thanks for the response! :)
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