Answer - How to calculate calories in homemade food?

sibitalic
sibitalic Posts: 30 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Just thought this might be helpful for some people:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/315341-how-to-calculate-calories-in-homemade-food/


Have a great day everyone!

Replies

  • hazelovesfood
    hazelovesfood Posts: 454 Member
    I havent looked up your link but actually its quite easy, just weight everything and either share the cals out or look up the ingredients online.
  • Jori7071
    Jori7071 Posts: 19 Member
    I got to the recipe tab on MFP and put all the ingreadients in and create the recipe. Even if its just a home made burger I create a recipe for it.
  • Zichu
    Zichu Posts: 542 Member
    I just search each ingredient in the database and add it. I find it's a pain making recipes or meals because I know I'm not going to stick to making that meal with the same ingredients or same portions. I also find it easier to just go on previous days and use the quick tool to copy the meal and change it a bit. I do this with roast dinners which we usually have twice a week. One with chicken and one with either lamb, pork or beef, I just remove chicken and add whatever meat I am having on that day.

    I used to make my own food meals on here, but it became a pain when I had to up my intake and I was adding more food into my diet to the point where I was eating pretty much double for each meal and it just wouldn't come out right.
  • SelkieDiver
    SelkieDiver Posts: 260 Member
    I go to the recipe tab on MFP and put all the ingredients in and create the recipe. Even if its just a home made burger I create a recipe for it.

    ^^^^^^^^
    This!

    Plus that way its in there for future use if I make the recipe again. Other food groupings I eat on a regular basis (cut up fruit & nuts, my daily salad, etc.) I have stored under the "my meals" tab. Makes logging easy and pain free.
  • niftyafterfifty
    niftyafterfifty Posts: 338 Member
    I didn't know that the USDA had a National Nutrient Database; it has the nutrient content of each food along with the calorie count. I don't usually include that information when calculating homemade food calories. Thanks for the information.
  • usernamekelly1
    usernamekelly1 Posts: 1,941 Member
    I have all my main dishes that I make in a spreadsheet, all I do when I'm cooking said dish is go to the tab for it and adjust the quantities of each item to fit with the weight that I've measured, when I adjust the quantities, this automatically changes the cals, carbs, fat etc etc as I have calculations set up.

    I have my main dishes set in MFP, when it comes to working out how much I ate I have that all set to calculatie on my spreadsheet also, so I weigh the full dish (with pan ect) and then weigh my foods, my spreadsheet works out the rest. I adjust my main dish in MFP if it's out by too much. Normally though it's just carrots, onions ect that the weight changes for so the difference is neither, here nor there!

    The spreadsheet took a while to set up at first, but now it's changing a few numbers and that's it.

    Screenshot-3.png
  • JayByrd107
    JayByrd107 Posts: 282 Member
    See Recipe Tab

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