[sammijean]

Okay, so I totally understand the whole guidelines behind counting calories (I think - but it sounds so simple, I feel like I'm wrong and if I'm not I don't know why I haven't done this ages ago!) Just write down the food that's going in, multiply the servings of that item by the amount I put in the recipe to get the overall calories. Add with other ingedients in the dish and then divide by how many servings the dish contains. Am I correct?

Now if I'm not - I need this explained to me. Because apparently I am not getting it. I understand that there are numerous computer generated calorie counters out there (MyFitnessPal is definitely a winner) but he problem is, they only count calories. I can't tell how much protein, fat, carbohydrates, sugars or sodium is in each serving I'm consuming.

For instance - I made peanut butter balls :

2 cups Tollhouse Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (32 tbsp - 2240 calories)
1 cup Smucker's All Natural Creamy Peanut Butter (1600 calories)
1 cup Suebee Premium Clover Honey (960 calories)
1 cup Mom's Best Naturals Quick Oats (300 calories)
1 1/4 cup (or 5 scoops) Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein Poweder - Vanilla (700 calories)

***If you want to make them - put oats in food processor until finely ground. Add protein powder and pulse to mix. Add peanut butter and honey and combine until a sticky mass of peanut butter gooeyness evolves. Roll into (approx 24 - I got 26 out of this batch) balls. Heat up chocolate chips in a double boiler (or glass bowl over a pot of boiling water). Dip balls into chocolate and coat. Put in refridgerater. Enjoy!


The personal trainer who provided the recipe said each ball came out to about 103 calories without the chocolate and 135 with the chocolate. I came out with 136 calories without the chocolate and 223 calories with the chocolate. For one ball. That seems like a lot. How did I get almost 100 calories more?? (Granted - I used MyFitnessPal - but then calculated on my own and came to the same total). So.. my question is, how do I calculate all of this? This has a large amount of protein because of the powder & peanut butter. I want to show how well the protein/carbs work out, but I have no idea how to caluclate that or any of the other "8g" "3g" items. Plus, I want to know why we have two completely different calorie amounts. I'd understand maybe 10-15 off because of different products, but almost 100? Yeah right.

Any help?? Thanks!!

[rachaelm]

I use the recipe calculator on sparkpeople. I type in the ingredients, then tell it how many servings. It automatically calculates the nutritional information. Easy, and I don't have to do math....

[LovelyLeah]

Hope this doesn't come across as spam but I always use:
Recipe Analyzer
I find it to be simpler than the spark people one because you can copy & paste the recipe and then do further look up if needed. I also get the same results as the SP one.