Home-cooked meals are often thought of as a healthier alternative to eating out. That is often true when fast food is involved. You can bake 50 g or 10 strips of French fries at home and yield a nutrient intake of 100 calories, 4 g of fat, 16 g of carbs and 2 g of protein. On the other hand, 50 g of McDonald's French fries consists of 144 calories, 7 g of fat, 19 g of carbs and 1.5 g of protein. Not every home-baked meal is inherently nutritious, however. Calculating the nutritional values for your home-cooked meals will allow you to modify your recipes to reflect a more balanced diet.
Step 1
Make a table on a sheet of paper listing all foods in your meal on separate rows. Make rows for calories, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, total carbs and protein. Include vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, vitamin D, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, phosphorus, magnesium and zinc, as well.
Step 2
Look at the Nutrition Facts section of your food label. Determine the serving size of the food in your recipe based on serving size information at the top of the food label.
Step 3
Scroll down to the calories label. The first number to the right of calories will be the number of calories in your food item. Multiply the specified number of calories by the number of serving sizes that make up your food item. This will give you the total amount of calories in your food item.
Step 4
Calculate the grams of fat, milligrams of cholesterol, sodium and potassium and grams of carbs and protein the same way you calculated calories. Measurements for these nutrients are located to the right of their row labels.
Step 5
Determine the amounts of vitamins and minerals in your food ingredient. Vitamins and mineral amounts are listed below protein. This section lists the percentage of vitamin and minerals included in your food, based on recommended values for a 2,000-calorie diet. For example, if your food label lists that you are getting 10 percent of protein, this means you are getting 10 percent of what the government recommends a person get if on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Step 6
Multiply the recommended percentage as a decimal by the Food and Drug Administration's recommendation for that nutrient, to get the amount in your food item. For example, if there is 25 percent niacin in your item, multiply the amount of niacin as a decimal, .25, by the recommended amount of niacin, 20 mg. This yields 5 mg of niacin per serving of your ingredient. Multiply that product by the total number of servings that make up your food item.
Step 7
Go to LiveStrong.com's MyPlate for foods that do not have labels. Enter your food item under the heading "What did you eat?" Determine the serving size, calorie level, fat, carb and protein values for your food from the resulting table.
Step 8
Repeat these steps for all foods in your meal, listing the nutrient values in the appropriate columns on your table. After all rows have been filled in, add up the total amounts for each nutrient. This will reflect the nutritional value of your home-cooked meal.
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