[electrongirl]

Taken right from the WW website:

When I add fruit to the recipes I create in the Recipe Builder, it counts PointsPlus values for it! I thought fruit was zero?
Just as we've always done with 0 PointsPlus value vegetables, 0 PointsPlus value fresh fruits contribute toward the total PointsPlus values of a recipe, whether it's a Weight Watchers recipe or one you build yourself in the Recipe Builder.

The technical explanation is that because recipes are calculated based on the total grams of fat, fiber, protein and carbs for all their ingredients. As one poster on the Message Boards, DANI_THE_GECKO, sagely points out: “The recipe builder only knows that you input nutritional information. It does not know if it's fruit, green beans or heavy cream."

But why do we do it this way? There are a couple of very good reasons why we count fruits and veggies in our recipes:

Our recipes often appear in articles and magazines nationally, so we need to provide the calories and nutrient content, as many recipes published elsewhere do.
Once vegetables and fruit are elements in a prepared recipe, the experience of eating them changes. Few people overeat carrots — but they might overeat carrot cake.
If your “recipe" is truly just a few pieces of fruit, then you might want to record it in your Tracker as separate items or as a “meal" — the latter looks at each item separately and then adds up all the PointsPlus values. Because all the items have 0 PointsPlus values, the total will also be zero.

Are there situations when I need to count PointsPlus values for fruit?
No, not for fresh fruit. Yes, fruit does have calories, and it contains fiber and other nutrients. But we’re assuming that you’ll eat a certain amount of fresh and other unsweetened fruit (veggies, too) each day, and have taken that into account when giving you your daily PointsPlus Target.

All fruit is 0 PointsPlus values when it's fresh, unsweetened frozen, canned in its juice and drained, or with artificial sweeteners. What if you peel it? Yep — as long as it’s unadorned, it’s still zero. (Again, same for veggies.)

You do need to count PointsPlus values when there's added sugar, such as fruit in syrup or in juice, or when there's less water content, as with dried fruit.

I’ve heard that cooking fruit increases its sugar content. Is that true? Does cooked fruit really have a PointsPlus value?
No, the sugar content doesn’t increase when fruit is cooked. However, during the cooking process, there is water loss, so you will have more fruit for a given volume. In other words, a half cup of cooked pears will contain more fruit than a half cup of raw pears.

[QuilterInVA]

That's 5 servings of fruit at one time! Seems like a lot not to count it.

[miniquail]

I think that this all about the recipe tracker is cow patties, excuse my french.

On the WW website, as part of one of their celebrity campaigns, they have a resource titled "Jennifer Hudson’s Meal Plan."

Here, I'll post their meal plan for her Day 2 breakfast:

"Morning – egg whites scrambled with veggies and cheese; toasted English muffin with jelly; turkey bacon
Subtotal PointsPlus™ values | 8
Ingredients

3 large egg white(s) | 1 PointsPlus value
1/4 cup(s) mushroom(s) | 0 PointsPlus values
1/4 cup(s) cooked broccoli | 0 PointsPlus values
2 Tbsp low-fat shredded cheddar cheese | 1 PointsPlus value
1 item light English muffin | 3 PointsPlus values
1 Tbsp jelly | 1 PointsPlus value
3 slice(s) cooked crisp turkey bacon | 2 PointsPlus values"

If leaders and WW customer service and their website are saying that food changes composition when you cook it, why are her mushrooms and her broccoli free? Because she's famous? Man, some people just get everything ;)

Or if one is of the school of thought that making a recipe large enough that others share it with me is why I have to count fruit/veg points, then does doubling this same scramble and sharing it mean that it will all of the sudden be say 3 or 4pp for each serving, instead of 2pp?

Now about the smoothie, I have seen many say it in many places, but blending a piece of fruit does not mean your body has any easier time breaking it down. Your blender is changing that piece of fruit about the same amount as your teeth do, unless you swallow your bananas whole. I suppose I no longer have to chew my strawberry, so I'm missing out on the half a calorie that burns, but if that really is the difference I'll just swish the smoothie around a bit to get those nice saliva enzymes mixed up in there (yummy image!) and chew some gum when I'm done.

Does what I'm saying have some big glaring hole in the logic? I'd like to know, because I don't want to be cheating the system, but until something else makes more sense I'm not counting my steamed broccoli I mix with my pasta.