Preparing your own foods can support a healthy dietary lifestyle. If you're working toward weight management goals, you may benefit from learning how many calories your homemade dishes contain (Mayo Clinic). With a bit of research, planning and calculation, you can come up with these numbers and adjust ingredients and servings sizes to suit your weight and wellness goals.
Step 1
Decide what recipe you'd like to determine calorie counts for, and pull the ingredients you have on hand from their storage places in your kitchen.
Step 2
Note the calories per serving on the nutrition labels of these ingredients. Refer to your recipe to find out how many servings of each food it will entail. Multiply the calories per serving by this number and jot it down in a list. (For example, if a recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of peanut butter, that is equal to two peanut butter servings. One serving of peanut butter contains 200 calories. Thus, you would add 400 calories to your list.)
Step 3
For ingredients you haven't yet purchased, look them up in a calorie count index. A book of calorie counts will suffice, or you may use an on-line index, such as Calorie Count. Once again, determine how many servings of each ingredient you'll be using and multiply it by calories per serving. Add these numbers to your list.
Step 4
Using a calculator, add all of the numbers on your calorie list together.
Step 5
Divide the sum total by the number of servings your recipe provides. This number indicates how many calories are in one serving of your dish.
Tips and Warnings
- If your recipe is higher in calories than you'd like, substitute dense ingredients with lighter ones. For examples, apple sauce can be used in place of oil in baking, and a sucralose or stevia-based sweetener can be used in place of sugar (Global Gourmet).
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