Figuring Calorie counts in recipes/home made foods

M

MomR

Member
Somebody out there HAS to know more about this than I do! Whenever I try to keep a food intake diary, I inevitably fail, because so much of the food I prepare is of my own concoction. The thought of eating all prepared processed food would be more convenient, but I'm not comfortable with this idea. Some have suggested assigning a "calorie value" to these foods. I have a difficult time estimating how many calories are in my home made soups and muffins etc. What I'm wondering is this: how does one go about figuring out how many calories are in a prepared dish? Would I write down all the ingredients and then painstakingly (whine, math sucks!) figure the total calories and then divide by serving size? Is there a resource book that lists larger measurements of food calories/nutrients for this purpose? What do dieticians do? I love to cook in case you didn't guess!
ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!
Thanks you guys and Cathe,it's so great to be connected, Julie
 
Julie, when I was food logging, I did it the hard way. I cook a lot, I don't use much at all in the way of prepared foods, so it was a HASSLE. But after the first month, it's a lot easier. By that time I had figured up a lot of my popular recipes so I was only doing the math gig every now and then instead of every meal! Another thing you can do is get a good calorie counter book and approximate using it. For instance, if I made chili, I would look up prepared chilis in the book and estimate how I thought mine compared. This will get you in the ballpark. But I am too anal to do that very often, I usual figured it all up. Start your own little reference book of your own recipes, though, and over time you'll be amazed at how the information accumulates!

Hopefully someone else has found an easier way!
 
Have you tried www.dietwatch.com? It's a free online health calculator (among other things). You can enter the incredients for your recipe and it will automatically calculate the total calories, fat, sodium, etc. I haven't used it a while, but have in the past and worked out great.

Good luck.
 
Hi Julie,

I had the same problem until Leslie recommended MasterCook The Complete Suite featuring Betty Crocker's Recipes to me. It is a CD for your computer. It has 9 Complete Betty Crocker Cookbooks AND you can enter your own recipes. It gives a nutritional analysis to track fat, calories, protein, carbs and also food exchanges for the recipes on the CD and also the recipes that you enter. I purchased it from Sam's. I love it.

Sandi
 
Master Cook

I got the Master Cook software, Cooking Light edition at Office Depot. The thing I use it most for is just what you need. I enter in my own recipes and have it do the nutritional analysis. I absolutely love it. It's very easy. It even has a lot of features that I haven't had a chance to use yet.I highly recommend it.

Loretta
 
Could you share how much Master Cook costs at Sam's Club? Thanks.
 
Hi,

Sam's had MasterCook featuring Betty Crocker's Recipes for $39.97. A rebate was available when I purchased it. After you enter your recipes, you can save them in your cookbook and also print them. No more looking for that special recipe that always gets misplaced. Have fun!

Sandi
 
Master Cook

I went shopping today for Master Cook. It's available through Amazon for $30 (plus shipping). Locally, at Office Depot & Best Buy it was $50 w/ a $10 rebate coupon. Neither had the Cooking Light version, only the Betty Crocker. It looks like the only difference between the 2 versions is the database (Betty vs Cooking Light).

Thanks for the MasterCook suggestion. I haven't figured out how to analyze my own recipes on Dietwatch.com.
 
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