How do you work it out?

[SkinnyLiz]

Lots of recommendations for cooking from scratch on here, but how do you work out the vital statistics for your meals?
Calorie content?
Carbs ??

For example: made soup today, used approx 220g each of onion, celery and carrot, fried in 2 tbls veg oil for about 5 mins, then added about a pint home made chicken stock, generous teapoon of mixed herbs and 100g red lentils. Simmer for 20 mins, added some water, about 500ml, and stock cube as well, still needing more savour, so pinch of celery salt, some black pepper and few more herbs. Blend. Made four generous bowlfuls.

My best guess is around 180cal, 22g carb - but not at all confident that is right.

 

[trophywench]

Look the nutritional value of the ingredients up, online ! The main source of carbs there are the lentils, plus a bit for the carrot and the onion. The back of the packet will tell you both the carbs and calories. Ditto the stock cube box. Of course there are calories in the celery, the stock and the oil - but I'm not interested in them particularly. The main danger with that soup for me would be how good it was, cos it's doubtful I could enjoy it entirely without bread! - although not the white sliced sort, it would have to be something soft with a good crust - like those 'bake it yourself' loaves or a lump of baguette or ciabatta.

 

[SkinnyLiz]

we had a small bake at home roll with the soup

 

[khskel]

If you want a handy reference guide Carbs and Cal's gives you the values for many foods.

 

[Midnightrider]

Try https://cronometer.com/
It does all the work for you, all you need is the weight of your ingredients. It calculates calories plus all your macro (carbs, fats etc) & micro (vitamins, minerals etc) nutrients.
You can also save all your recipes.
It is free too for all the basic functions and keeps records of biometrics such as weight and blood glucose.

 

[Ljc]

I too find the Carbs and Cals book very helpful.

 

[Drummer]

You might be a little low for the soup, but not a lot - the bread would be more than the soup so maybe 50 gm of carb for the meal.

 

[SkinnyLiz]

Try https://cronometer.com/
It does all the work for you, all you need is the weight of your ingredients. It calculates calories plus all your macro (carbs, fats etc) & micro (vitamins, minerals etc) nutrients.
You can also save all your recipes.
It is free too for all the basic functions and keeps records of biometrics such as weight and blood glucose.

sounds good Midnightrider, will be looking into this, thank you

 

[WHT]

Try https://cronometer.com/
It does all the work for you, all you need is the weight of your ingredients. It calculates calories plus all your macro (carbs, fats etc) & micro (vitamins, minerals etc) nutrients.
You can also save all your recipes.
It is free too for all the basic functions and keeps records of biometrics such as weight and blood glucose.

Thank you Midnightrider - I've just downloaded that and gave it tonights food intake....lets me see where I stand!