Calories in Pork Neck Bones? I'm stumped!

  • I am making kapusta today, which is lots of sauerkraut simmered for at least 8 hours with mushrooms and raw pork necks and just the tiniest bit of sugar to cut the acidity.

    I use the pork necks with the bone in, and I bought 3 pounds of them. I cannot figure out how many calories these are! They will cook with the sauerkraut until the meat falls off the bone, so no fat will be drained off (it's what gives the kapusta flavor).

    I've found a couple of sites online that list this:
    1 oz, with bone (yield after cooking, bone removed) = 17 calories
    1 oz, with bone cooked (yield after cooking, bone removed) = 23 calories
    Maybe I'm overtired, but if they are both "1 oz...yield after cooking", shouldn't they be the same? And even so, only 816 - 1104 calories for 3 pounds seems low considering the neck is so fatty.

    Does anyone have any ideas? Or does that range sound right to you? This is a dish traditional for my family, and I make it several times a year. I'd like to make sure I'm not horribly underestimating my calorie count when I eat it (since I'll probably have a bowl daily for my lunch or dinner meal until it's gone)!
  • Most of the weight of neckbones is inedible. You're paying mostly for bone (which is why they should be cheap, but aren't always). A pound of neckbones probably only yields about 3 to 4 ounces of meat, so 17 to 23 calories per ounce sounds very reasonable.

    If you weighed the meat after cooking, the calories would be much higher per ounce because the weight of the bone wouldn't be figured in.