Must see for careful calorie counters

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Jthanmyfitnesspal
Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
in Food and Nutrition
First: Vi Hart is very cool!

Second: I think she's on to something here:

https://youtu.be/mxNPpte_6m4
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Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Actual careful calorie counters are probably weighing the soup, because they know this stuff...

    If only I could weigh my soup. Tomato soup is listed at mls. I hate it.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Actual careful calorie counters are probably weighing the soup, because they know this stuff...

    If only I could weigh my soup. Tomato soup is listed at mls. I hate it.

    Gah!! Okay, rephrase to 'weigh or measure' :)

    I would give anything that has 'about' before number of servings the side eye.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Actual careful calorie counters are probably weighing the soup, because they know this stuff...

    If only I could weigh my soup. Tomato soup is listed at mls. I hate it.

    Even our ice cream here is in mls. Calorie counter nightmare.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
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    musicfan68 wrote: »
    OMG - I got through about 5 minutes of that video and kept thinking "JUST WEIGH THE D@MN SOUP! It gives the weight in grams - and figure it from there! It's not that hard!"

    Ha, yeah, I also didn't bother watching the whole thing for the same reason.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Actual careful calorie counters are probably weighing the soup, because they know this stuff...

    If only I could weigh my soup. Tomato soup is listed at mls. I hate it.

    Gah!! Okay, rephrase to 'weigh or measure' :)

    I would give anything that has 'about' before number of servings the side eye.

    I noticed that on some junk food the other day. "About 2.5 servings per bag." Really? That's awful specific for "about."

    By the way I borrowed "about" $20, I hope that's ok. :wink:
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
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    She made that WAY more complicated than it needed to be.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    i bought a thing of steamable vegetables last night...the package said about 3.5 servings - when i weighed it out (still frozen) - it was more lke 2.8
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,393 Member
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    Yeah, I do see those things in the UK as well. If I'm uncertain whether something fits into my allowance, or leaves me hungry I get out my phone and calculate the actual calories per tin/package/whatever
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
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    deannalfisher wrote: »
    i bought a thing of steamable vegetables last night...the package said about 3.5 servings - when i weighed it out (still frozen) - it was more lke 2.8

    I always thought a serving was the whole bag. :) I never figured out how they got 3.5 servings out of one bag - those would be really tiny servings.
  • ExistingFish
    ExistingFish Posts: 1,259 Member
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    Steam broccoli is supposed to be FOUR 1 cup servings. After it is steamed, it is barely two. I guess you are supposed to measure out the cups frozen? Same here, we get two servings for me or one for me and two child size servings. If DH actually ate veggies, we'd have to cook two bags.

    Also, 80 calories of soup is low calories. 160 calories is a snack for me, not a meal. You'd have to eat a lot with it. 300 calories of "Thick and Hearty' soup might make a low calorie meal, as long as you don't add a lot of bread/crackers.
  • JustSomeEm
    JustSomeEm Posts: 20,197 MFP Moderator
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    I actually eat a can of soup every day for lunch (usually). Took me a while to figure out the 'about', and that I was often getting more calories that I realized, but no big deal for me, since it's a single meal, and the calories weren't vastly different usually.

    **Disclaimer - I'm at work and did not watch the video.
  • kpsyche
    kpsyche Posts: 345 Member
    edited July 2018
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    malibu927 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Actual careful calorie counters are probably weighing the soup, because they know this stuff...

    If only I could weigh my soup. Tomato soup is listed at mls. I hate it.

    Gah!! Okay, rephrase to 'weigh or measure' :)

    I would give anything that has 'about' before number of servings the side eye.

    I noticed that on some junk food the other day. "About 2.5 servings per bag." Really? That's awful specific for "about."

    By the way I borrowed "about" $20, I hope that's ok. :wink:

    The reason for that is because there are reference serving sizes for different foods/food-groups. But the number of servings on the packet of food must reflect not how much people should eat (based on the standard/recommended serving size), but what they normally would eat. So you end up with weird fractional parts like in your example (you'd end up with weird fractional parts based on just standard serving size as well)
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,393 Member
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    ExistingFish wrote: »
    Steam broccoli is supposed to be FOUR 1 cup servings. After it is steamed, it is barely two. I guess you are supposed to measure out the cups frozen? Same here, we get two servings for me or one for me and two child size servings. If DH actually ate veggies, we'd have to cook two bags.

    Also, 80 calories of soup is low calories. 160 calories is a snack for me, not a meal. You'd have to eat a lot with it. 300 calories of "Thick and Hearty' soup might make a low calorie meal, as long as you don't add a lot of bread/crackers.

    How can you measure broccoli in cups? Do you smash it? Do you use just the fluff from the top? After al, different sized pieces of broccoli will fill a cup differently.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
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    musicfan68 wrote: »
    OMG - I got through about 5 minutes of that video and kept thinking "JUST WEIGH THE D@MN SOUP! It gives the weight in grams - and figure it from there! It's not that hard!"

    I saw the preview photo with "soup conspiracy" and that stupid emoji and didn't even bother to watch what looked like some click bait video that would over complicate everything.

    For the soup I buy that has the servings in mL instead of grams which is annoying, I just weighed the can with water after I was done to figure out how big the can is (1 mL of water = 1 gram, thank you metric system), and figured out it was 2.1 servings per can. Now I know for all future logging.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    I'm SOOOO glad I don't have to play mental gymnastics with my servings. Everything is listed by 100 g with a suggested serving on the side so all I have to do is weigh however much I want. Neener neener!
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    musicfan68 wrote: »
    OMG - I got through about 5 minutes of that video and kept thinking "JUST WEIGH THE D@MN SOUP! It gives the weight in grams - and figure it from there! It's not that hard!"

    She probably knows, but that's the usual format of her videos. I like her. She does rambly doodly math videos that overcomplicate the simplest ideas for the sake of math, which are usually quite entertaining if you like numbers and math (I do). I doubt this video's goal was "calories" per se.

    For example, I doubt the goal of this video is to make mashed potatoes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5RyVWI4Onk
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,393 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    I'm SOOOO glad I don't have to play mental gymnastics with my servings. Everything is listed by 100 g with a suggested serving on the side so all I have to do is weigh however much I want. Neener neener!

    Lucky you! Due to lack of money I shop a lot at Aldi and Lidl, and often calories there are marked as "100gr prepared product as per instructions / calories per serving, approximately 2.5 servings per pack." I don't often buy readymade things, but this puts me off completely.

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