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Calculate a Serving "Size"

centre21
centre21 Posts: 3 Member
in Feature Suggestions and Ideas
Greetings,

Nearly all recipes you find are quick to tell you the number of servings a dish was designed to provide, but they never tell you just how much a serving is, whether in standard or metric units. Maybe MFP could have a bit of code that helps calculate this information based on the amounts of the ingredients in the recipe? That way we can know just exactly how much of a recipe to eat to get the projected calories from the serving.

Cheers
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  • knuthhjohansen
    knuthhjohansen Posts: 1 Member
    Very good input- almost useless without how much a serving is in grams
  • CottonwoodMama1
    CottonwoodMama1 Posts: 6 Member
    I find that if you calculate each ingredient, then you can divide. I think that if you input a recipe on here you can add the number of servings and then it will give you the amount of calories per serving.
  • nsk1951
    nsk1951 Posts: 1,304 Member
    Yeah ... I think I get what you are seeking ... for example, I have found that generally, my meals end up at 2-3 cups in volume. Doesn't matter if its in a bowl or spread out over plates/bowls/cups ... that's about how much I can eat before my stomach is distended enough for my body to sense that I am full.

    Would be nice to know that that pasta casserole that is supposed to feed 6-8 only actually ends up measuring about 1 cup per serving. ... And I never eat just one cup of soup as a serving! And talk about something really tasty like Boston Baked Beans and Franks ... geeze, 3/4 cup of that would be more than 1 serving just to start!~

    Not trying to be silly here ... just realizing that to actually have a well balanced meal that sufficiently fills me up and stays with me a decent amount of time takes more planning and cooking and serving it out than I usually want to bother with. And that recipes don't always help me 'see' what else will be needed with it to make that meal a success.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,255 Member
    I think different people may want to eat a different serving size? I doubt that tiny little petite sedentary people with a small calorie allowance, and tall, muscular super-active people are going to want/need the same amount in order to feel full, hit their calorie goals, get the needed nutrition.

    Outside-of-MFP recipes usually have a serving count, and one can use that in a recipe one saves here, but I don't like that option, personally.

    In the cases where I create a recipe in the database, I normally weigh the finished product, and use the number of grams as the number of servings. Then, when I eat some of the recipe, I serve myself the amount I want (like put it on a plate on a zeroed-out food scale), note the number of grams, and log that as my number of servings.

    Occasionally, like if I'm taking a dish to a potluck or something, I do cut it into X number of servings, then use that as the number of servings, just keep track of the number I ate.

    YMMV.
  • SuzanneC1l9zz
    SuzanneC1l9zz Posts: 456 Member
    Weight of total recipe ÷ number of servings it makes = weight of 1 serving.
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    The recipe builder as it is currently is the most flexible setup - different recipes, not to mention different cooks, have different approaches. Sometimes I make something that does break into discrete, easily-counted servings. Other times I make something where the serving size could vary, and it's less math to just put it in with 1 serving = 1 gram or 100g of the finished dish. There is a learning curve, but that's going to be true of any part of this process; the tool can't do all of the work for you, at some point you will have to actually try to understand what you're doing if you expect any of the changes you're making to stick.
  • gtdr
    gtdr Posts: 4 Member
    The simple answer is to give the recipe builder interface and input field for the total weight of the full resulting batch alongside or instead of "How many people does this serve", since it already has the total calorie and nutrient data from the individual ingredients. Currently I do what a couple others above have said, I make my serving size 1 gram, but it seems like a minimal programming effort for maximum UX return here.
  • Hudson
    Hudson Posts: 74 MFP Staff
    Because recipes list ingredients with various types of measurements (weight, volume, and so on) there is no way for the recipe editor to calculate how many grams a serving of a particular size will result when the various items are combined.

    What's been mentioned in the thread around weighing what a serving is for you and working with that is what I recommend to users. Or treating each gram as a serving works really well too!

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