Logging cooking oils, fats, seasonings

InigoMontoyasDad
InigoMontoyasDad Posts: 5 Member
in Getting Started
Fellow calorie counters, do you track the oil/butter/seasonings that you use in cooking? I am perplexed since you don’t consume all of whatever you cook with. I.e, if sauté mushrooms with a tablespoon of butter, the mushrooms don’t take on the entire tablespoon. Or if you sauté pork chops in avocado oil, you are of course insulting some oil but not all.

Replies

  • Megan_smartiepants1970
    Megan_smartiepants1970 Posts: 43,133 Member
    I count everything
  • slw37
    slw37 Posts: 89 Member
    Make it a recipe; add all ingredients then divide by number of servings. I always count it all.
  • Xiaolongbao
    Xiaolongbao Posts: 854 Member
    InigoMontoyasDad wrote: »
    ...you are of course insulting some oil but not all.

    Well that's not nice. I say if you're going to insult the oil you should insult it all! (Sorry I couldn't resist).

    I definitely log all oils/fats. Yes, a teeny, tiny bit may remain in the pan but a decent amount will end up in your food and I'd rather overlog than under. I don't log seasonings like salt/pepper etc.

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Fat is very calorie-dense, I log it all.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    I do, or at least I try. I know its not accurate but I figure its better to make an effort. If I use 2 tablespoons of olive oil to cook something for multiple people: I'll generally count about 1/3 of it for me. I figure probably less ends up being consumed by me but better to count an extra 30-50 than miss 30-50.
  • threeyears2024
    threeyears2024 Posts: 52 Member
    How do you guys count seasoning such as spices?
  • Dolph452
    Dolph452 Posts: 30 Member
    I'm of the opinion that with the best will in the world, none of us can exactly track every last calorie consumed and burned. It's impossible without being hooked up to metabolic analysis devices.

    With that in mind, for the very little I actually use them (maybe once a day), I never count seasoning condiments or small amounts of cooking oils. If you think you can honestly track your calories that accurately then you're doing far better than everyone else.

    Worry about the big stuff, and the small stuff tends to take care of itself so long as you can moderate.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    threeyears2024 wrote: »
    How do you guys count seasoning such as spices?

    I log them by the gram weight, just like everything else. Some spices are minimal calories some are not quite so minimal. I guess it depends on how much you use spices but in a curry or something like that the calories in all the individual spices can add up!

    As for cooking oil, I definitely count that by the gram weight too. A ‘splash of oil’ can be as much as 2 tbsp in a big sauté pan, for instance. That’s over 200 calories, right there. That’s pretty much my entire daily deficit.
  • freda666
    freda666 Posts: 338 Member
    I use very little oil in my cooking, just a spray or two, so I deal with this 'problem' by not logging my exercise calories. This then covers oil, spices, soy sauce and marmite as well as the sugar free but not calories free squash I drink.

    A tablespoon of butter though is a lot of calories so personally I would log that specifically.
  • futuremanda
    futuremanda Posts: 816 Member
    Yes. Don't worry about the fact that a fraction of the oil stayed in the pan or on the plate. Nothing is 100% accurate. For example:

    - in a bag of popcorn, a varying number of kernels will not pop
    - in any given 100g of say, chicken breast, the actual macros and calories will vary from what "100g chicken breast" would get logged at
    - when you bake something, some of the batter is stuck to the bowl and (unless you lick the bowl) not consumed
    - on any given day, you are burning an unknown, variable number of calories...

    You're going to get variance both up and down (eating more or less than you thought, burning more or less than you thought). Deliberately hiding things from your food journal won't help -- you'll just be definitely consuming more than you thought! Do your best to log everything and adjust as needed. Ex if you are losing way faster than you should be, you know you must be eating less or burning more than you thought, so you can say, eat more, and see if that fixes it.

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