What to do with bar olives???

boomerising
boomerising Posts: 43 Member
edited February 2018 in Food and Nutrition
One of my favorite snacks is a few olives from the olive bar at the supermarket. Generally medium sized ones but I also like the giant black cerignolas and the little brown ones sometimes called “leccino” variety. I am stunned I can’t find a sufficiently detailed entry that measures the serving by volume rather than weight (or number of olives, which obviously doesn’t work if sizes are mixed, and having to actually count small foods is one of the things I hate most about “dieting”).

Market olives almost always have some oil on them and while I do usually rinse them to get some of that off, it’s only partially effective. This is an item that could easily be wildly over- or underestimated, as the wide range of calorie counts in the database shows. I can’t afford to get it wrong either way while trying to adhere to a 1400-calorie limit. And these olives are one of my very best friends when a craving hits. Plain ones in brine from a can are nowhere near as satisfying as the market preparations with garlic, hot peppers, herbs, etc.

Does 10 calories per olive sound reasonable? (No, the olives I choose are not stuffed with anything.) And does anyone have a solid calorie count for something like “mixed deli olives” measured by cup fraction?
«1

Replies

  • ghudson92
    ghudson92 Posts: 2,061 Member
    I share your frustration on this. Most supermarkets now do jars of olives that come with garlic, chilli, feta.. all the good stuff (if you're in the UK I know this is true for Sainsburys, Waitrose, Tesco and Asda). You can find them in the pasta aisle usually, or not too far away, and they contain all the nutritional info so are easy to track. Sorry I haven't been able to resolve your issue but this is the best compromise I could find when experiencing the same problem. In my humble opinion, I believe these to be just as good as the olives from the deli bar.
  • mskimee
    mskimee Posts: 228 Member
    Same with sun-dried tomatoes! The oil is a pain to log and the calories are listed as "per 100g drained" but how drained is drained when it comes to oil? Is it so the oil no ,longer drips or on a paper towel and patted dry?? I feel your pain and I'm interested to see others solution to this!!
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Basically what _TMac_ said -- I don't understand why volume would be preferable to weight.

    I like olives and just try to go with type of olive and weight, although I'll just pick one and the weight if I have mixed olives. If you eat a reasonable serving the difference won't matter. I'd agree that by number of olives is useless given the different sizes (unless you find your specific type of olive, and even then weight is much better). Usually there's a weight estimate too and you can use that. If you are concerned about including the pits you can weigh them after but from experience they are really light.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    If you’re rinsing then that leads me to believe you’re bringing them home before eating?? Can you use a food scale and weigh them instead?
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    edited February 2018
    __TMac__ wrote: »
    If you really don’t want to weigh food as a general practice
    Actually, I didn’t say that. What I hate, as I said in the post, is counting things. I have a nice Escali brand scale that I have been using every day since I came back to MFP. I couldn’t do MFP without it.

  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    georgyporcupine wrote: »
    In my humble opinion, I believe these to be just as good as the olives from the deli bar.
    Not to mention safer!! Thanks for your suggestion. I did try looking at some jars at my favorite market the other day and took photos of the nutrition labels on a couple of them, I need to go back and review those. None matched the olive preparations I buy at the olive bar as well as I would have liked but at least they contain oil and give me some further orientation on this. I guess when I feel I’ve identified a plausible calorie count for medium olives dressed in oil and vinegar I’ll do a weighing of the ones I eat and recalculate my per-olive “charge” based on that information.

  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Basically what _TMac_ said -- I don't understand why volume would be preferable to weight
    I feel it’s a lot easier to fill one of the volume measures I have hanging on the knob of a kitchen cabinet, say 1/3 or 1/2 cup, with the olives and then transfer them to a plate or board or whatever (or just eat them from the measuring cup) than to get my scale out, tare the container, wash the container, etc. (I don’t have enough counter space to just leave the scale out all the time and not worry about it getting jostled around, etc., so I put it back in its box and stand it on end after each use. Sigh. :smiley: )
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    edited February 2018
    hesn92 wrote: »
    If you’re rinsing then that leads me to believe you’re bringing them home before eating??
    Correct and thanks for providing that clarification to anyone who may need it. ;) The olive “bar” is not literally a bar. Cannot pay on the spot and stores would not be happy with me if I ate them before paying for them. Though I confess I do occasionally sneak one to see if I like the dressing because they’re too damn expensive to get them home and go “ughhhhh!” (To hopefully prevent a scolding on this: NO, I do NOT touch any of the olives when I do this. I scoop one up with the spoon and drop it into my other hand.)
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    Get a small digital scale for $7 that is not a high maintenance pain in the butt and that you can whip out without all the hassle. Put the olive container on, tare the whole thing, remove the ones you want, and enter the negative number shown by the scale as a positive in your MFP log. It could not be easier. And then you are not even getting the measuring cup dirty.
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    @kimny72 I like your second suggestion, thanks. First method, I guarantee I would dribble/splatter the olive dressing all over the scale :p
    @French_Peasant You hurt my scale’s feelings. I like my scale. What I *really* need to do is get all the crap off the counter that I don’t use every day but am too lazy to climb up and get out of high cabinets :D However I do like your suggestion of getting the weight of the portion desired by subtraction instead of addition. Thanks.
    j3qx7huuycfb.jpeg
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    eu1xu9p8vomj.jpeg

    Another tool I have started building is this index card bundle where I make a card every time I weigh and count a favorite snack (like Beanitos <3 ) so I don’t have to repeat the process. I do most things on my desktop computers or iPad, but I like this physical tool.
  • jaquieduck
    jaquieduck Posts: 14 Member
    Olives sold from olives bars are always sold by weight, are they not?
    I buy about half a pound of olives about once a week. I estimate throughout the week and check to see that it adds up to about 1/2 a pound at the end of the week.
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    boomerising wrote: »
    @kimny72 I like your second suggestion, thanks. First method, I guarantee I would dribble/splatter the olive dressing all over the scale :p
    @French_Peasant You hurt my scale’s feelings. I like my scale. What I *really* need to do is get all the crap off the counter that I don’t use every day but am too lazy to climb up and get out of high cabinets :D However I do like your suggestion of getting the weight of the portion desired by subtraction instead of addition. Thanks.

    Please give your scale my apologies! :p Think of it more as getting a pet for your scale, that has a lid and can just kick around your purse or the junk drawer. Really, you can never have too many.


  • Cbean08
    Cbean08 Posts: 1,092 Member
    Do you have an Italian market around you? Or a european grocery store? They might have something that is already in a jar that is closer to what you are looking for. You might be able to find something around where they keep the giardinara.
  • Poisonedpawn78
    Poisonedpawn78 Posts: 1,145 Member
    a quick google search seems to suggest 16-20 calories per greek olive.
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    French_Peasant wrote: »
    Think of it more as getting a pet for your scale, that has a lid and can just kick around your purse or the junk drawer.
    Thanks for the giggle, I needed that! :)
  • boomerising
    boomerising Posts: 43 Member
    Cbean08 wrote: »
    Do you have an Italian market around you? Or a european grocery store? They might have something that is already in a jar that is closer to what you are looking for. You might be able to find something around where they keep the giardinara.
    That's a helpful thought, thanks. We do have a little group of Italian-themed markets I haven't had a chance to visit much lately (used to live closer to them). Hmmmm, tomorrow is a non-gym day so maybe I can work one of them in :D Browsing their aisles might also spark some new meal or snack ideas for my regimen.

Categories