I used to use a site to find foods (I think it was called caloriecounter or something) but I found a lot of the foods would vary depending on the brand you bought so for example if I had fish fingers for lunch but I say made them, the options on the site were for store bought fish fingers and I would never know which to choose!

Also a lot of the brands were American whereas I'm living in Asia but British so didn't know most of the brands on there so I gave up with that site and the idea of calorie counting as I also cook most of my foods and rarely eat processed/packaged foods so I find it hard to know how much calories there even are!

Anyone with any advice or help ?

Here's what I do.... (The only things "packaged" that I eat are condiments, yogurt, bread, and dry goods like pasta/rice, etc).

Before you cook, measure/count/weigh what you'll use for ingredients (including veggies)... Then just do general google searches and compare the different website's calorie counts for each food, choosing numbers right in the middle that match the amount you're eating.

Then, add up the total calories for all of the ingredients, and divide by the number of servings it makes... and then poof! You've got your calorie count for your portion

For example, if I make 2 servings of a pasta primavera, I'll add up the 2 plum tomatoes (about 13 each, so I round up to 30), 400 calories for 2 servings of pasta, 90 calories for 2 cups of broccoli. 30+400+90=520/ 2 = 260 calories per serving.


This gets quite a bit easier when you a.) stick to natural foods that do not require label interpretation and b.) you are diligent in writing things down. Eventually, you'll remember what each portion of each food is roughly worth in calories, and you can add it up in your head as you go! When I need to write down a calorie count for something that was at a restaurant, someone else's house, or that has a lot of different counts listed on different sites, I choose the higher number and make an effort to exercise a bit more to balance it out.

It's ok if one item isn't precisely counted... going with the higher calorie count will just set you up for success, if you've over-estimated the calories.

Hope that was helpful and not too basic?

Calorie Count has a recipe analyser, as do other calorie counting websites. You just input all the ingredients and their amounts, and it does the math for you. The websites should have an option to save your recipe, too, so you can use it again and again.

sparkpeople.com, although an Amercian site, has the option to search 'user added' foods, and just about every mortal thing I've ever bought/eaten is listed there.

I second spark people! Their user added foods includes so many additions. I have only had to enter a custom food that I couldn't find once, and I eat some strange brands sometimes LOL.