Since homemade foods don't have nutrition facts labels, it's not always clear how many calories you're dishing up when you serve yourself a thick slice of warm banana bread or a big bowl of hearty chili. If you keep track of the information for each ingredient you use, however, it's easy to crunch the numbers and figure out calorie counts and nutrition facts for each serving of the dish you prepare.
Step 1
Write down relevant information for each ingredient you use in your dish. For example, if you want to track only calories, write down the calorie count from each component, available from the nutrition facts label.
Step 2
Find nutrition information for items that don't have labels. If you're baking a casserole that uses fresh tomatoes and bulk brown rice, go to an online calorie counter, plug in the foods and find their values for the amounts you're using.
Step 3
Add up all of the calorie amounts you listed for each ingredient. You'll have the totals for only what you used, so the final number you calculate should be the total number of calories in the dish. You can also add up individual amounts to get totals for protein, fat and other nutrients.
Step 4
Portion your dish into equally sized servings. For instance, if you're making a casserole for your family, cut it into six equal squares. Then divide your calorie total and other nutrition amounts by six to determine the nutrition facts per serving in the recipe you prepared.
Tips and Warnings
- The Food and Drug Administration suggests limiting your daily intake of fat, sodium and cholesterol, so you may want to write down and track each of those amounts as well. Make sure to check serving sizes on ingredient labels, since you may need to double or halve calorie amounts listed if you're using less or more than a single serving. When trying to figure out calorie totals for whole foods, such as apples or homemade bread, it can be helpful to use a kitchen scale to measure the amount of food you used, in grams, and compare it to the serving size listed with the online calculator. If you're trying to lose weight and you usually prepare food at home, you can also use your calorie calculations to help you determine when to portion out smaller servings and how to stay on track with your eating plan. Keep in mind that you need to save or burn 3,500 calories to lose 1 lb., as the National Institutes of Health states.
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