I keep second guessing myself when it comes to counting calories in recipes that I make up.

Yesterday for supper I made chicken Parmesan.
I counted the calories myself and I came up with a very different amount then what it was when I punched in into one of those calorie counters.

This is my recipe,

Marinara sauce:
1 large can of pear tomato strips with basil (no sugar added)
1 large can of tomato sauce (no sugar added)
1 cup of canned mushroom pieces
1/2 cup onions diced
1/2 cup green bell pepper diced
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp garlic
unmeasured amount of spices thrown in.
Saute onions, pepper and mushrooms then mix everything together and simmer. makes 8- 1 cup servings servings

I counted the calories myself and came up with 591 calories for total recipe, and Nutrition Data recipe analyzer said it has 684 calories for the whole recipe.



Breaded parmesan chicken:
3 chicken breast halves (split and pounded evenly)
8 slices white bread (processed into crumbs)
2 slices wheat lite bread (processed into crumbs)
2 tbsp parmesan cheese grated
4 tsp italian seasonings
2 egg whites
3/4 cup skim milk
Mix the bread crumbs with the parmesan cheese and italian seasonings.
Mix eggs with milk, dip chicken in egg mixture then into bread crumb mixture.
Place chicken on a baking pan and bake on 400 till the chicken is done. Makes 6 servings.

I came up with 1111 calories and ND recipe analysis came up with 1539 calories, both are for the whole recipe.


I also had a cup of angel hair pasta with my serving of chicken and marinara @ 220 calories.



Tonight for supper we had Chicken Fajitas.

2 lbs trimmed skinless boneless chicken breast sliced into strips
3 cups onions
3 cups green peppers
Spices: cumin, red pepper, chili powder, garlic salt, seasoned salt to taste.
Makes 7 1 cup servings

I just went by ND recipe analyzer and it said it has 438 calories for the entire recipe and only 63 calories for a serving. That surely seems really low.


Can this be possible. Is there really that much of a variation in the figures or am I not doing something right?

mmmkay, I guess nobody knows.

Hi,

Sometimes I find that there are variations in the recipes I cook too. Since I'm using the numbers from the packaging I'm cooking from I feel pretty confident they are right...at least more so than the calculators. Not sure why the discrepancies though, it would be interesting to find out why.

Happy Cooking!
Jen

Hmm, I come up with some discrepancies based on brand sometimes - like it tells me turkey sausage in general has 100 calories (for sake of an example) and my brand has 80. That can definitely happen with bread (like your bread crumbs) or depending on how lean your meat is. It can happen for veggies and stuff like that too - I mean, is my medium onion the same size as your medium onion? So I take a number for the things I cook a lot and go off of that. I also have a little cheap food scale to measure 2 ounces of cheese or whatever.

Websites can vary a lot - I think sometimes you have to go with one estimate and stick with it.

I cook A LOT, and I collect recipes like some people collect baseball cards or something. So for mine, I add up each individual item based on the calorie counts I find online or based on what my particular package says, then add up and divide.

So far I have been using the Nutritional Data site to get all of my information for foods that don't already come with calorie information on them. And for things that have the nutritional info on the package, I go with that info.

That is about the best I can do I think.

I'm basically trying to use the same recipes I have always used (the ones in my head) and write them down on paper with measurements added. Most are already pretty good for you, I have had to make lower calorie adjustments on some though. I need to be able to know the nutritional info for my made up recipes. This way when I cook Chicken parmesan or another recipe again I can just print it out from my recipe file, cook it and already know the calorie count without having to figure anything out.

I add each item in the recipe according to the packages that I have, and use an online counter for things without labels (veggies, etc.).

Ultimately, it is impossible to be 100% accurate, because so many things vary. I just do my best to be as accurate as possible, and then relax.

YEah! That is what I need to do.


It feels weird though because I feel like I'm really eating a lot of food but my calories are still low at the end of the day.

When I look back over my day, I see that I'm not really eating a lot of fat. Most of my fats are coming from meat. So tonight I ate the skin on my chicken to add some fat and that helped to boost the calories a little.

Like you said Relax, I just need to relax. I'm so new to this that I'm constantly second guessing myself.

It's cool though because I have extra calories to spare so right now I'm having a small cup of skim milk with a 100 calorie pack of chips ahoy cookies.
And I don't feel the least bit of guilt about it.

On packaged foods portion sizes may vary which will account for the differance in calories.

Well, I don't know if I'd trust this site you are using if they said that a recipe with 2lbs of chicken has only 438 calories for the whole recipe. Just the 2lbs of chicken breast meat is 1000 calories according to calorieking.com.

As far as the other recipes, there doesn't seem to be a huge discrepancy between what you calculated and what ND got.

Many factors can cause these differences and calorie counting isn't an exact science, no matter how much we wish it was. There are differences between brands, differences between measuring and weighing, etc. I look at calorie counts as being averages, not absolutes.

There's no way that chicken fajita recipe can be 63 calories a serving. If you have the leanest possible (all breast meat) chicken that is injected with a little sodium solution to make it weigh more, your chicken is at least 880 calories (110 calories for 4 oz). Chicken breast that isn't injected with water or sodium is usually at least 120 calories for 4 oz so that would be 960 calories for 2 lbs. Divided by seven servings, you'll get around 140 calories per serving right there. And that's not counting the onions (probably around 215 calories for three cups) or the green pepper (probably around 100 calories for three cups).

In the case of the Chicken Parmesan, the calories are going to vary pretty significantly depending on how many lbs the chicken breasts were. If ND assumed the chicken breasts weighed more than what you assumed, that would account for the difference in calories.

I have to admin that, even though I know it's all just an estimate and not an exact science, I figure out all the calories in all my recipes myself. I have an Excel spreadsheet that I created to do it. Even if the recipe includes nutritional info, I figure it out myself because I've often found the nutritional info provided for recipes to be wrong.

My additions in red above. Without knowing sizes of what you listed, it's impossible to come up with an answer so I made a WA guess. N/A means not applicable...not enough to worry about it. So...I could be wrong on the two cans of tomato product, as I have no idea on the size...and on the first item, I don't even know what a can of tomato strips is, so I counted the calories the same as diced canned tomatoes.

As you can see, it will vary depending on what site you use to determine calories, and the specific items/qty used. Perhaps if you listed calories in your recipies (as I did) and indicate if they came from the package or you pulled them off a site...then we could tell you if we have a different number somewhere.

You would be far better including healthy fats in your diet, instead of saturated fats like animal fat. Look up Mufas (monounsaturated fatty acids) and use those in your daily diet to get the good fats you need. Examples of Mufas are olive oil, seeds, nuts, avocado, dark chocolate, etc. Avoid or limit saturated fats (like butter, meat fats, cream, cheese, etc.) and especially transfats.

And don't relax so much that you accept labels that are so far off that you know they can't be right...like your calories on the fajitas...that one is way off, and if you are counting the wrong calories all the time you could end up gaining instead of losing. If you are confused on one caloric amount from one web site, do more searches and compare with other sites and other similar products.

On your fajitas recipe, if you add 4 oz of raw chicken breast to 3 cups onion and 3 cup pepper, your recipe will be about 426 calories for the total dish. But two lbs of raw chicken breast will give you closer to 1434 per total dish. (and that is not counting oil for sauteing).

Those numbers seem way off. Way off.

Until you get a better hang the calorie counting thing, maybe you'd be more comfortable if you used recipes using LESS ingredients. Chicken breasts, vegetables, fresh herbs.

You may also want to try looking up some recipes that have the work all done for you. Safeway.com, tasteofhome.com, whatscookingamerica.com, kitchenparade.com, prevention.com - all have a wealth of delicious recipes with all the figuring out done for you. You can also tweak them to suit your tastes better. Check em' out.

I went back and recalculated the recipes and the only ingredient that I was wrong about was the chicken. I even checked on several sites, which all seem to use the same program for nutritional information imo. Somehow I chose the wrong weight when choosing a size on the ND site. I'm glad I went back and looked, its kind of tricky. It all makes better sense now.


But like I said before I use the package for nutritional information and when there is no nutritional information on the package I pull it from the website.