Measuring/counting help

kzboncak
kzboncak Posts: 11 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hello everyone! I am excited to join this community! I do a lot of big batch home made stuff (chili, veggie hashes, breakfast casseroles). I am curious how every counts all their intake/calories when recording meals like this where it is hard to measure exactly what you’re getting and and all the different ingredients! Would love some tips!

Replies

  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
    edited October 2019
    I measure out the ingredients, divide into servings, then create a meal with one portion to enter into the food diary.

    Because meals like this are not going to have a precise calorie count, I would leave some extra calories at the end of the day to offset it.

    I tried creating a recipe but it was an epic fail. It's a good suggestion if it works for you.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,941 Member
    edited October 2019
    For things like this I use the MFP Recipe Builder function. I create the recipe using the exact gram weight of every ingredient then once the recipe is cooked and finished I weigh the entire end result.

    I’ll then enter that resulting weight in grams as the number of portions the recipe serves. Then when I come to eat it I weigh my portion and log that weight in grams as the number of portions.

    So for instance, I’ll make baked pinto beans - the whole pot weighs 786g. So that recipe is named ‘Baked Pinto Beans 1g=1serving’ and has 786 servings. I’ll put 130g on my plate and log 130 servings.

    Subsequently, if I make the same recipe I’ll simply edit the original recipe, again with the exact gram weights as I go along, (one onion does not always weigh the same as another, for example)...weigh it again and edit the servings and go from there.
  • moonangel12
    moonangel12 Posts: 971 Member
    edited October 2019
    I have a larger scale in mind for just this purpose! Mine currently only goes to 5lbs so it is beyond difficult for my brain to accurately figure out a single serving amount vs. the whole batch when I am working with 5-6 quarts. Eventually I will tare out the pot size, get the total, and then go from there based on my usual portion.

    Each bowl won’t be exactly the same, which is mostly what I think you are asking? but it will be a ball park. I make sausage and kale soup a lot so some bowls definitely are heavier on the sausage, but I eat on it all week so I just assume it all evens out in time.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    edited October 2019
    kzboncak wrote: »
    Hello everyone! I am excited to join this community! I do a lot of big batch home made stuff (chili, veggie hashes, breakfast casseroles). I am curious how every counts all their intake/calories when recording meals like this where it is hard to measure exactly what you’re getting and and all the different ingredients! Would love some tips!

    It depends on whether or not I am the only one eating it and if I plan to eat it all in a week. The reason it depends is because the total number of calories matter but the portion sizes do not. I will enter the recipe as a serving size of one and if I eat it 4 times each I log each as .25 serving and eyeball the portions. The priority is getting the total number of calories right not the serving sizes if it is all in the same week.

    If you are sharing it or freezing some of it you have gotten answers above on how to handle it.
  • ElleBellesTheoBear
    ElleBellesTheoBear Posts: 67 Member
    I create recipes and measure all my ingredients with a food scale. Once entered it I determine the amount of servings and log it that way
  • RovP6
    RovP6 Posts: 108 Member
    edited October 2019
    saraht4392 wrote: »
    I create recipes and measure all my ingredients with a food scale. Once entered it I determine the amount of servings and log it that way

    Ditto to that. Then split it into the number of servings you've stipulated and store for future consumption. I tend to freeze in multiples of 2 servings then defrost for dinner and lunch the following day.
  • OldHobo
    OldHobo Posts: 647 Member
    kzboncak wrote: »
    Hello everyone! I am excited to join this community! I do a lot of big batch home made stuff (chili, veggie hashes, breakfast casseroles). I am curious how every counts all their intake/calories when recording meals like this where it is hard to measure exactly what you’re getting and and all the different ingredients! Would love some tips!

    What I do is put all the ingredients in a recipe. Then after it's cooked I weigh the pot, skillet, casserole dish full of food, subtract the tare weight of the pot, pan, or dish. Obviously, if you're going to do this you want to make a list of the tares for all your cooking or mixing vessels. Then I make the number of servings in the recipe equal the number of whole ounces in the net weight. When I have a bowl of that soup for lunch I weigh the bowl and enter the quantity equal to the ounces to the tenth of an ounce. I almost always use ounces as a unit but it could be anything that works for you. My recipes have names ending with the unit to remind me, for instance, "OldHobos Balsamic Rice per ounce," or "Old Hobos Rib Rub per gram."
  • kzboncak
    kzboncak Posts: 11 Member
    Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the tips!

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