Is there anyway to find calories in commericial products?
 

I have been trying to keep my calories and fats really low, because, well thats how you lose weight.

But, is there anyway to find how many calories are in baked items, such as a Chocolate Muffin?

It depends on where you got the muffin, in my mind :) Some stores/restaurants put nutritional information on their websites or on the items themselves. You can also try to get an "average" from sites like www.calorieking.com but again, it won't be the exact amount of calories in that specific muffin.

Is it a chocolate muffin you made? You can add up all the calories for the ingredients (mix, egg, oil, etc) then divide by the number of servings. Is it a chocolate muffin at a place like Starbucks or Panera Bread? It should be posted online.

Brace yourself though - muffins are terribly high in both fat and calories (unless prepared carefully at home). For example, a blueberry muffin from Starbucks has 500 calories (!) and 19 grams of fat. The lowfat version has 390 calories and 9 grams of fat.

I try to avoid most "moist" baked goods since it's the oil that keeps them all soft and moist and delicious. My sweet treat at a Starbucks is a 120 calorie biscotti :).

I just had to laugh, even "healthy" baked goods are ridiculous, "no sugar added" banana walnut coffee cake at Starbucks - 480 calories, 28 grams of fat!

If it's a brand name product, a lot of times you can go to the brand website and look up the nutritional info. Not always but usually.

I agree with Glory, though, that muffins in general are bad things for low cal diets! :) Even my homemade ones with lots of fiber and oats and applesauce instead of fat and so forth are high in calories. I eat them becuase they make good portable breakfasts (and mine are reasonably healthy) but I do have to accommodate a higher calorie breakfast when I do!

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I love muffins, but can't afford the calories. Most muffins are really cake, and most have little nutritional value, just white flour, sugars, and hydrogenated oils. I don't think it would be safe to try to estimate something like a chocolate muffin, unless you estimate REALLY high. That's one of those things that's too easy to underestimate.