Adventures in totally botching calorie counting: Velveeta shells and cheese
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need2belean wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »Hah, I really appreciate all the comments figuring out how to do this right - I am still a novice when it comes to packaged foods for all that I've been calorie counting for a year now. I think I'll stick with my strategy of only eating packaged foods once every three months or so and (apparently) dramatically overestimating the calories when I do. So long as my trend line stay steady, I'm happy.
The one that annoys me is Dole chopped salads. They only provide nutrition data/weight for the complete salad kit, but I often don't want to prepare the whole thing because we're not going to use it all right away. I wish they would mark each individually packaged component with it's own data, especially the dressings which is usually where most of the calories come from.
In cases like this, you can make negative entries in MFP. So, most of the time for those salads, I don't eat the almonds. So, I enter that I ate the whole dole salad. Then, I weigh the almonds and if say they're 28g, I add almonds to MFP and give them an entry of -28grams and it subtracts from the total.
OMG, I never knew you can add a negative item.
If only there were actual negative foods!
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It's maddening - who eats uncooked rice / pasta!?! Does that even make any sense?
I guess the other takeaway is to reach for Stouffers Mac & Cheese (or something similar) and get your the portion to ensure you only eat 350 calories...
Of course, I can't stop with just one serving. If I am going to eat it - I am going to eat it all! LOL!
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »MommaGem2017 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Is the weight they list for a dry or cooked 112g? I would assume it's for dry and the actual cooked weight would be much higher (since the pasta absorbs water-the amount depending on how long you cook it). So if you want to get crazy with the dry/cooked weights, you'd want to weigh out 112g (of a combo of dry shells and sauce), cook the pasta, add the sauce then re-weigh the cooked product.
But-your point that packaged foods still need to be weighed is a good one as they are often quite off from the label.
This makes sense. If someone were cooking the whole box 9say for the family meal), then how would they go about figuring out one serving after cooking?
I would imagine... if it were 112g a serving and approx. 3 servings per box. I might measure out say exactly 3 servings 336g), cook it, weigh it again, and take 1/3 of the cooked product? Does that sound logical?
I'm not sure how that would work with the cheese sauce packet. I suppose it's possible but seems like a LOT of work. If I often cooked spaghetti for family dinners, I might go through the weighing process once to know (roughly) the cooked weight of a serving of pasta. But for something like this? I would just eyeball the 1/3-or if I had huge concerns, just take 1/3 of the total cooked package and know that's 360 calories.
For something like the sauce packet:- Put whole packet on scale.
- Zero.
- Snip/rip top off packet (I'm assuming it's one of those soft foil-y type).
- Put ripped off packet strip back on scale
- Squeeze out cheese goo.
- Put empty packet back on scale.
- Negative value on scale = weight of cheese goo.
I don't understand the purpose of weighing the cheese packet. It doesn't help establish the calorie count unless separate nutrition data is provided for the packet (and I don't believe it is), and it's not really helpful in regards to the weight of the finished product, as weight usually changes from the cooking process. (Your instructions are fine though, as far as needing to know the exact weight of cheese goo )
Presumably you could snip first, then zero, then squeeze, then weigh. I use this trick for mayo and I don't include the lid when I zero out.
Yes, but whatever method you use, *why* weigh the cheese sauce?
Hm. Good point, I suppose. I guess if you're trying to determine what an exact third of the package is? I assume most of the calories are in the cheese goo.
We weigh to get exact calorie counts of items going into a recipe, but serving size weight should be based on finished weight because water content will change in the cooking process, either being absorbed, as with pasta, or cooking off with sauces & things.1 -
It's maddening - who eats uncooked rice / pasta!?! Does that even make any sense?
The problem is, the finished weight is going to vary based on cooking time & amount of water absorption, so a manufacturer can't really say what the finished product will weigh. With pasta, I'm very comfortable with my 3X estimate (finished weight = 3 X the dry weight), because every time I've made it, it's been within 10 g of that #.1 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »autumnblade75 wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »MommaGem2017 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Is the weight they list for a dry or cooked 112g? I would assume it's for dry and the actual cooked weight would be much higher (since the pasta absorbs water-the amount depending on how long you cook it). So if you want to get crazy with the dry/cooked weights, you'd want to weigh out 112g (of a combo of dry shells and sauce), cook the pasta, add the sauce then re-weigh the cooked product.
But-your point that packaged foods still need to be weighed is a good one as they are often quite off from the label.
This makes sense. If someone were cooking the whole box 9say for the family meal), then how would they go about figuring out one serving after cooking?
I would imagine... if it were 112g a serving and approx. 3 servings per box. I might measure out say exactly 3 servings 336g), cook it, weigh it again, and take 1/3 of the cooked product? Does that sound logical?
I'm not sure how that would work with the cheese sauce packet. I suppose it's possible but seems like a LOT of work. If I often cooked spaghetti for family dinners, I might go through the weighing process once to know (roughly) the cooked weight of a serving of pasta. But for something like this? I would just eyeball the 1/3-or if I had huge concerns, just take 1/3 of the total cooked package and know that's 360 calories.
For something like the sauce packet:- Put whole packet on scale.
- Zero.
- Snip/rip top off packet (I'm assuming it's one of those soft foil-y type).
- Put ripped off packet strip back on scale
- Squeeze out cheese goo.
- Put empty packet back on scale.
- Negative value on scale = weight of cheese goo.
I don't understand the purpose of weighing the cheese packet. It doesn't help establish the calorie count unless separate nutrition data is provided for the packet (and I don't believe it is), and it's not really helpful in regards to the weight of the finished product, as weight usually changes from the cooking process. (Your instructions are fine though, as far as needing to know the exact weight of cheese goo )
Presumably you could snip first, then zero, then squeeze, then weigh. I use this trick for mayo and I don't include the lid when I zero out.
Yes, but whatever method you use, *why* weigh the cheese sauce?
Hm. Good point, I suppose. I guess if you're trying to determine what an exact third of the package is? I assume most of the calories are in the cheese goo.
Well - I would totally do the math for you if I had a box of the product in front of me. Most dried pasta has a very similar calorie count of 200 calories per 2 oz. (dry) serving. You could weigh the pasta, calculate the calories, and then subtract from the total calorie count of the prepared box to find the calorie count of the packet of cheese goo.
I ate my last box last night or I'd try out your instructions.
No worries - it's mostly an academic question to keep my mind busy while I'm home with an injured dog.
It was a fun rainy-day topic
Hope your dog gets well soon! 1 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »MommaGem2017 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »Is the weight they list for a dry or cooked 112g? I would assume it's for dry and the actual cooked weight would be much higher (since the pasta absorbs water-the amount depending on how long you cook it). So if you want to get crazy with the dry/cooked weights, you'd want to weigh out 112g (of a combo of dry shells and sauce), cook the pasta, add the sauce then re-weigh the cooked product.
But-your point that packaged foods still need to be weighed is a good one as they are often quite off from the label.
This makes sense. If someone were cooking the whole box 9say for the family meal), then how would they go about figuring out one serving after cooking?
I would imagine... if it were 112g a serving and approx. 3 servings per box. I might measure out say exactly 3 servings 336g), cook it, weigh it again, and take 1/3 of the cooked product? Does that sound logical?
I'm not sure how that would work with the cheese sauce packet. I suppose it's possible but seems like a LOT of work. If I often cooked spaghetti for family dinners, I might go through the weighing process once to know (roughly) the cooked weight of a serving of pasta. But for something like this? I would just eyeball the 1/3-or if I had huge concerns, just take 1/3 of the total cooked package and know that's 360 calories.
For something like the sauce packet:- Put whole packet on scale.
- Zero.
- Snip/rip top off packet (I'm assuming it's one of those soft foil-y type).
- Put ripped off packet strip back on scale
- Squeeze out cheese goo.
- Put empty packet back on scale.
- Negative value on scale = weight of cheese goo.
I don't understand the purpose of weighing the cheese packet. It doesn't help establish the calorie count unless separate nutrition data is provided for the packet (and I don't believe it is), and it's not really helpful in regards to the weight of the finished product, as weight usually changes from the cooking process. (Your instructions are fine though, as far as needing to know the exact weight of cheese goo )
Shrug. Somebody said the packet was a complicating factor for figuring uncooked weight of the whole package (which is why I bolded that phrase in the quote). I explained a way to do it. Weigh the dry pasta, weigh the goo, you have uncooked weight. That's it.
And yes, you could snip before weighing if the snipped packet will stand on the scale snipped without goo oozing out, or stand it in a cup on the scale before zeroing. I have no idea what the packet looks like, so I dunno..
I wouldn't weigh the packet . . . because that's something I don't eat (no prejudice implied). But this "negative method" is how I weigh lots of things I do eat: Condiments, peanut butter, yogurt, oatmeal, hunks of cheese cut off a block, etc. It's a good technique to know, and it solves the stated problem.1 -
I solved this by not using cheese packets and making my own sauce, easily weighed. Tastes better, too.4
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Here's the super crappy part -- ONE Poptart is a serving. Ridiculous!4
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Good grief, my head is spinning. Who knew instant macaroni could be so complicated???0
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I've learned a great deal here, many thanks to you all!!1
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SuperCarLori wrote: »I've learned a great deal here, many thanks to you all!!
I am glad my brain fart ended up being helpful.
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »SuperCarLori wrote: »I've learned a great deal here, many thanks to you all!!
I am glad my brain fart ended up being helpful.
And the better news is - you consumed fewer calories than you thought!2 -
MommaGem2017 wrote: »Foods that become too difficult to log would just fall off my menu.
I'll ditto that.
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