calories for homemade vegetable soup

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wyedwab
wyedwab Posts: 6 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So different calories listed under homemade vegetable soup. This is one of the most frustrating things about this site. I want to KNOW my nutritional values but they are usually so different. How do I calculate my soup and how is best to navigate site when you are looking up something and want most accurate value?

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  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    Don't use generic recipe style entries in the database. They were entered by other users and you have no idea what they put in it. Log each ingredient, and if there are a lot you can use the recipe builder
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    If you want to know your nutritional values, you have to log the ingredients and amounts you use. If you use the recipe builder you can set serving sizes.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    wyedwab wrote: »
    So different calories listed under homemade vegetable soup. This is one of the most frustrating things about this site. I want to KNOW my nutritional values but they are usually so different. How do I calculate my soup and how is best to navigate site when you are looking up something and want most accurate value?

    You use the recipe builder. Why would you think some random homemade soup entry would match yours...it's not your recipe, it's someone else's. Use the recipe builder.
  • wyedwab
    wyedwab Posts: 6 Member
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    Gotcha ya, I do use the recipe builder often but still so frustrating when I am looking for an ingredient (mine to day was homemade broth, but not always) Like looking up vegetable broth, there are calorie counts for 1 cup-from 5 calories -15. Just frustrating. Sorry to say but spark people didn't have such discrepancies,just wondering why MFP does.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    Because most of the entries are user-added.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    use the recipe builder. everyone makes it different.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    wyedwab wrote: »
    Gotcha ya, I do use the recipe builder often but still so frustrating when I am looking for an ingredient (mine to day was homemade broth, but not always) Like looking up vegetable broth, there are calorie counts for 1 cup-from 5 calories -15. Just frustrating. Sorry to say but spark people didn't have such discrepancies,just wondering why MFP does.

    For something like vegetable soup or even homemade broth, there should be differences, it depends on how it's made. I'd save your own broth in your recipes (DON'T make it public) and then it's easy going forward for that ingredient.
  • DebLaBounty
    DebLaBounty Posts: 1,172 Member
    edited January 2018
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    I wouldn’t sweat the difference between 5 calories and 15 calories. If you’re really concerned you’ll overeat your calories for the day, pick the higher value or split the difference.

    My thought is that one bowl of soup will vary anyway. Today your bowl might have a slightly bigger serving of meat and potatoes, the bowl for lunch tomorrow might be heavier on carrots and celery. I had to guesstimate along these lines and still lost weight.
  • creatureofchaos
    creatureofchaos Posts: 65 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    wyedwab wrote: »
    Gotcha ya, I do use the recipe builder often but still so frustrating when I am looking for an ingredient (mine to day was homemade broth, but not always) Like looking up vegetable broth, there are calorie counts for 1 cup-from 5 calories -15. Just frustrating. Sorry to say but spark people didn't have such discrepancies,just wondering why MFP does.

    For something like vegetable soup or even homemade broth, there should be differences, it depends on how it's made. I'd save your own broth in your recipes (DON'T make it public) and then it's easy going forward for that ingredient.
    Yup, if you're making homemade broth, you are never going to get a completely accurate number. For example, with vegetable broth, you're going to strain off the broth and throw out the solid vegetables you've used. Some of the calories will be left in your stock, and some won't be. There is no way for any calculator online - not MFP, not Spark - to tell you exactly what. All you can do is make an educated guess.
  • koslowkj
    koslowkj Posts: 188 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    wyedwab wrote: »
    Gotcha ya, I do use the recipe builder often but still so frustrating when I am looking for an ingredient (mine to day was homemade broth, but not always) Like looking up vegetable broth, there are calorie counts for 1 cup-from 5 calories -15. Just frustrating. Sorry to say but spark people didn't have such discrepancies,just wondering why MFP does.

    For something like vegetable soup or even homemade broth, there should be differences, it depends on how it's made. I'd save your own broth in your recipes (DON'T make it public) and then it's easy going forward for that ingredient.

    The problem I've found with doing that is that you can't use a recipe as part of a different recipe. At least as far as I know. I use the recipe builder to figure out calories per serving and then enter that as a food so I can use it in a recipe. Where it tells you to put the brand, I put "Homemade - KJK" (my initials) to differentiate it from other homemade foods. That way I know it's mine and I hope anyone else who uses it understands that it is a homemade food and therefore an estimate for anyone but me.
  • ljashley1952
    ljashley1952 Posts: 273 Member
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    I frequently make a big pot of vegetable soup. I log the information for each individual item I put into the soup using the recipe builder. If it's a can of corn or a diced up potato or frozen peas...whatever it is I look it up and log the entire amount. When I finish the soup I have a huge number of calories but then I calculate how much I have made. I will divide it into however many servings I want to make. For example: If I have a quart of soup, I will divide it into four 2 cup servings. The calculator on the recipe site asks how many servings you are dividing it into and then it will tell you how many calories it makes for each serving.

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