Logging in salad on MFP

Majesticmountain0507
Majesticmountain0507 Posts: 2 Member
edited November 27 in Food and Nutrition
When making an individual salad at home, do you need to log in how much of each veggie is put in the salad? Aren't veggies a "Free Food"?

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Majesticmountain0507 wrote: »
    When making an individual salad at home, do you need to log in how much of each veggie is put in the salad? Aren't veggies a "Free Food"?

    Yes, log everything. Veg has calories, even if it's not many.
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
    Water doesn't have calories.
    Everything else does and no matter how few calories (celery, lettuce for example) they add up.
    Log it all.
  • RadishEater
    RadishEater Posts: 470 Member
    edited July 2018
    Bell peppers are annoying higher in calories than I originally thought.

    If you only eat 1 radish a day sure skip that but more than that you should log.

    I have eaten ~170 calories in vegetables today
  • mrslynda
    mrslynda Posts: 50 Member
    As others have mentioned, veggies contain calories and nutrients. I am trying to get 120 g of protein most days, emphasis on trying.... Any way stuff like spinach and broccoli for example really help with that.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    Vegetables have calories. It is up to you how accurate you want your logging to be. If you eat enough vegetables and do not log them you can be missing quite a few calories in your log. I'd at least log an estimated amount of calories if it were me.
    If you find you are not losing at the expected rate start logging everything as accurately as you can.
  • itsgood
    itsgood Posts: 85 Member
    I log the individual ingredients, though I don't weigh. I usually will have things like half a cucumber or green pepper, 2 cups of lettuce, etc. I know these are just estimates but they're close enough, and I generally overestimate a bit. But it does depend on the vegetable...more calorie dense ones deserve a little more scrutiny...sweet potatoes, corn and so forth!
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    I'll usually make a particular salad a few days in a row, and I'll weigh accurately the first time to get an idea of how much I'm using, and log that as a meal. I cut up the amount I wanted, drop it in the bowl while it's on the scale to get a reading, then tare it and do the next vegetable. I'm not as perfect the next few days and just cut up approximately what I used unless it's a high-calorie vegetable like avocado, in which case I'll just repeat what I did on the first day and log if it's more than normal.
  • workinonit1956
    workinonit1956 Posts: 1,043 Member
    I log all of the ingredients. I eat really big salads :)
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    Majesticmountain0507 wrote: »
    When making an individual salad at home, do you need to log in how much of each veggie is put in the salad? Aren't veggies a "Free Food"?

    Veggies are only "free" food in programs (like Weight Watcher's) that start you at a lower calorie target in order to incentivize you into eating more of them. They really aren't "free," at all.
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    Everyone is correct here, all foods have calories. Most salad veggies do not have a lot of calories, so depending on your own definition of "negligible," you may decide that for a small salad you're willing to accept an estimate rather than weighing each item. I generally just estimate a small side salad's worth of low-calorie veggies as 25 calories, but I'm in maintenance rather than trying to lose weight. If you're losing, you may want to be more accurate.

    If you are eating a big salad, or if you're including more calorie-dense items (beans, cheese, seeds, etc.), the calories can add up quickly and you probably would not consider it negligible. Dressing, of course, is another story altogether. I'd recommend logging dressing portions accurately, especially if you use oil or full-fat dressing, but even low-calorie dressing adds up if you use a lot of it.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    I do that "bowl on scale, tare, add veg 1, note, tare, add veg 2, note . . . " method for salads every time. Super simple, super quick, super accurate. Bonus: When you log it, you get more accurate macro/micro totals.

    If I didn't log my veggies, I'd be ignoring hundreds of calories a day, which wouldn't help me sustain the right calorie level for loss (when I was doing that) or maintenance (now).

    Veggies aren't free foods. Water is a free food. ;)
  • Majesticmountain0507
    Majesticmountain0507 Posts: 2 Member
    Thanks MFP members for the great advise and comments!👍
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I had 116 calories worth of veggies today, so yes, I log them :)

    Food scale makes it really easy - I put my salad bowl on the scale and log the weight as I add food to the bowl, zeroing it out in between foods.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,302 Member
    If it is a home made salad combination you make a lot you can use the recipe builder. I've done that with potato salad - my potato salad has as it's main ingredients potato, mayonaise and bacon so not one anyone would consider low calorie though.
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
    I think it’s just a good practice to get into logging everything that you eat and drink accurately. Depending on how much weight you have to lose, it can really make a difference between showing a loss, maintaining a loss, or actually gaining weight. Especially the closer you are to your goal weight. Recording everything you eat and drink accurately, really does matter for weight loss, maintaining weight, and gaining weight.
  • walking2running
    walking2running Posts: 140 Member
    edited July 2018
    I used the recipe builder tool to estimate the calories in my salad. I did this over several weeks and then I averaged the calorie number for my salads. It always ended up being roughly 200 calories with the salad dressing. I eat salad every single night and now I am confident that I know what 200 calories worth of salad and salad dressing looks like. I don't bother to weigh every single time anymore. I always take the same amount and I use a low calorie salad dressing (and sometimes no salad dressing at all).

    When you weigh every single thing for a considerable amount of time, your eye becomes pretty trained to know the caloric value of certain items. I also spot check from time to time to keep myself honest. I also *always* weigh certain things such as cereal, nuts, and ice cream, because those things are impossible for me to eyeball, or they're too calorie dense. Salad (but not salad dressing) are things that I give myself leeway with. If I am going to keep this up for the rest of my life, I need to know where to be flexible. Salad is one of those things.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,302 Member
    Yes i do agree with above - everyone has to find their 'happy spot" between accuracy and sustainability

    logging some things in an approximate way like you describe and considering law of averages to even it out works for me.

    I do log as something though,( eg homemade green salad one serve), not consider veggies free foods.
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
    If it has calories, it gets logged. That includes veggies
  • MixedbarbieMOM1991
    MixedbarbieMOM1991 Posts: 43 Member
    U had a salad today it was 80 calories it adds up.
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  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    I made a recipe for "mixed veggies". The ingredients are equal portions of all of the vegetables I eat regularly and the number of servings is set to the total grams of veggies in the recipe. I often use that for adding vegetables rather than looking up each individual food. For example, if I'm taking a baggie of radishes, cucumbers, and kohlrabi with me for lunch, I just cut them all up and weigh them and then log that many grams as the number of servings of "mixed vegetables".
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