When you're counting calories to lose or maintain weight, it can be frustrating to not know the amounts for your favorite recipes or restaurant dishes, making a simple trip to Grandma's a big unknown in your diet. Once you know the ingredients, calculating calories in a dish will tell you where the item fits into your calorie requirements for the day and help you plan better. If you don't have access to a computer, or just like the old-fashioned way, this method of calculating calories can help.
Step 1
Make a table with four columns and label them: Servings, Ingredient, Calories and Total Calories.
Step 2
Use the nutrition label on the container to find the calorie count of each ingredient. For example, on the side of a flour package or egg carton, a serving size and caloric amount will be given. For example, one egg is 70 calories or ¼ cup of flour is 100 calories. Record the ingredient name and calorie count in the appropriate columns.
Step 3
Determine how many servings of each ingredient are in the recipe, and write that under Servings. Then, multiply the number of servings by the number of calories for each ingredient to get the total calories and write that in the Total Calories column. For example, if you used two eggs, then the total calories for eggs would be 70 times 2, or 140.
Step 4
Once you have done this for every ingredient in the recipe (it's OK to leave out spices, seasonings and flavorings), add up the amounts in the Total Calories column to get the total number of calories in the recipe. For example, if your recipe only contains eggs and flour as above, you would have 140 calories for the two eggs, and 100 calories for the ¼ cup of flour, for a total calorie count 240.
Step 5
Finally, divide the number of total calories by the number of servings. So, if the egg and flour recipe will make three servings, then divide the 240 total calories by 3, and you know that each serving will have 80 calories.
Tips and Warnings
- Memorize the calorie count of common ingredients, such as eggs, milk and flour. Use measuring cups to serve exact portions.
- For calorie counting to work properly, make sure the amount you put on your plate is really equal to a serving as you've calculated it. If your brownie recipe will make 36 servings, cut the batch into 36 pieces, not 12 huge ones.
Things You'll Need
- Calculator or pencil and paper
- Nutrition labels
- Calorie count books/websites
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