Using the food diary for meals

katcher65
katcher65 Posts: 3 Member
in Getting Started
Hi All,

I have just started back recording all my food.

I have a question on how to enter casserole/curry/soup type meals.

In the old system I used (calorie king australia), I entered all the ingredients for the pot, then saved that as a meal and specified how many it served.

When I added it to my diary there was a single entry for "Chicken and veg soup" with the rolled up nutritional information.

On myfitnesspal, I do similar, but it doesn't allow me to say how many serves and when I go to the "my meals" tab I have to convert to a fraction ie if it serves 10 I put in 0.1. Then, when I look at my diary it puts every ingredient in rather than a single meal entry.

Just wondering if it is possible to have a single meal entry, my diary is hard to read.

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
    I don't think it is. But this way it's easier to find single ingredients back if you use them regularly. If I cook a one-off, which I usually do then I put all cooking ingredients into my diary and then divide them by whatever I eat. I have a small whiteboard book which lists the contents of my small freezer. So portions I freeze go in there as well, and then I add the date I ate this first. Then I can simply copy the meal from date.
  • katcher65
    katcher65 Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks for your respone!
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,107 Member
    edited May 2020
    I always use meals when cooking and then enter the weight of the total dish in the title. And then use fractions when I've weighed my portion. I don't mind seeing the individual ingredients in my diary.

    I think an alternative is to create recipes instead of saving it as a meal, but I've never really seen the need to try that option myself.
  • eminater
    eminater Posts: 2,477 Member
    I think you are more talking about the RECIPE feature which asks for serving size. When you log the recipe - it then just puts the name of the meal in the app EG
    Lunch
    "Yirara's curried lentil stew"

    Where as with the meal - it will log all the components. BTW - once a meal is saved - when you log it next time, you CAN log a portion of the saved meal. Suppose you make your stew and save all the ingredients as a meal, and it serves 2, you can log the meal as "0.5 of meal". that also works.

    I use a combo of both. I like the recipe feature for more complicated dishes and it can link to a website with cooking instructions. I keep the meal for something simpler like a common salad combo I put together for example.
  • Numer1ca
    Numer1ca Posts: 247 Member
    @eminater That’s what I do too. It’s much easier.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    The comparable way would be to use the Recipe Builder in MFP. (The "Meals" feature is more of a collection of individual food items you would tend to log separately at the same meal).
  • katcher65
    katcher65 Posts: 3 Member
    Thanks everyone! I was using the wrong function. Recipes is what I need.

    I will eventually get my head around all this!!!!

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