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Calories per individual serving


vkn

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It would be really helpful if you would share the methodologies adopted for calculating calories per serving. Websites which talk about this subject give different values contradicting each other. Are there standard practices, just curious!

For example, here are two dishes for which we were trying to calculate calories per serving: Prawns Jalfrezi and Minced meat croquettes. Cheers!

Happy holidays!

VK Narayanan

Chef de cuisine

My Dhaba

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I use the MasterCook software, which easily calculates calories per serving. I could do these two for you, if you like, but if you want to do all of your recipes, the software is inexpensive and is useful for lots of other purposes too.

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Abra - thank you so much for the info. Really appreciate your kind reply. I did not know about this software and want to go for one. Could you please kindly do these two for me just to see how it works out?

VK Narayanan

Chef de cuisine

My Dhaba

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Hi there,

You could also do it manually so long as you have all of the values for each ingredient.

As a simple example, let us assume that RECIPE A consists of 2 ingredients:

Ingredient A = 200g with 250kcal/100g

Ingredient B = 50g with 400kcal/100g

The total weight of RECIPE A is 250g.

So for RECIPE A the kcal for each ingredient are:

(kcal/100) * g

OR

Ingredient A (250/100)*200 = 500kcal

Ingredient B (400/100)*50= 200kcal

Total kcal for 150g of RECIPE A = 700kcal

If 1 serving of RECIPE A = 10g then

(kcal/total weight) * serving size

OR

(700/150) * 10 = 46.6kcal/serve

I hope this helps.

Alternatively you could use Mastercook (cheap alternative) as abra wisely suggests or there is also a website on the Food Standards Australia website which allows you to calculate nutritional panels from a database of ingredients OR if you needed a full breakdown of a dish or product (for manufacturers or large commercial kitchens) you could consult someone in your area who does what I do (see Foodology Consulting)).

Cheers,

Doc-G

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Here is the link for the nutritional panel calculator on the Food Standards Australia website:

Nutritional panel calculator

There is also a highly professional software package out called food works which is available in Australia (I use this) but it is pricey.

Foodworks software

Edited by Doc-G (log)
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I use the USDA's Nutrient Data Labaratory to get values for all the ingredients in a given recipe. Then I just add up all the caloric values for the recipe and divide by the number of servings to figure out cal/serving. Works just fine for me, though it is somewhat tedious--I don't do it often enough to get software dedicated to this task.

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Here's what it looks like in MasterCook. As you can see, the terms for the ingredients have to presented in a certain format and using certain vocabulary. If I really want to indicate prawns, I can go get the nutritional info and incorporate it into the MC data base. Since "prawns" and "shrimp" are the same nutritionally, I just used shrimp for this little demo.

* Exported from MasterCook *

Prawns Jalfrezi

Recipe By :

Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :0:00

Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

-------- ------------ --------------------------------

1 lb shrimp -- shelled and deveined

6 green chile peppers -- medium hot and

sliced length-wise

1 piece ginger -- (1/2") finely

chopped and crushed

3 cloves garlic -- whole, lightly

crushed

2 medium onions -- diced

Curry leaves – a sprig

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp ground chile powder

1 tsp ground black pepper

2 medium tomatoes -- finely chopped

2 hot chile peppers -- diced

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2 cup coconut milk

2 tsp lemon juice

1 small bunch cilantro

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp canola oil

Method: Heat oil in a fry pan and when very hot put in the garlic, curry leaves, onion, and ginger. When onions turns limp, add the turmeric powder, chilli powder, black pepper powder, and fry for a minute. Add the tomatoes and saute till oil separates from it. Now add the capsicum, soy sauce, prawns, and salt. Stir-fry for 2 minutes on moderate heat. Add the coconut milk, green chillies, and lime juice alongwith half a cup of hot water. Bring slowly to the boil, simmer, and let the prawns cook in this mixture for approx 5 minutes. Serve hot garnished with coriander leaves.

Traditional Indian Home Cooking Recipe: Prawns Jalfrezi aka Chilli p

Prawns

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 255 Calories; 12g Fat (40.9% calories from fat); 25g Protein; 13g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 173mg Cholesterol; 1067mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 3 Lean Meat; 1 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 2 Fat.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My apologies for the delay in replying back my friends.

Thank you very much Abra; that looks excellent. I need to get one for myself to see the calories of all my dishes. Thanks a ton once again for enlighening me on this.

Doc-G - thank for you the links, quite informative. I am running through the links now and will get back to you should I have something to clarify.

Malawry - that was an excellent link, yet to study it well for myself, will let you know the results.

Cheers!

VK Narayanan

Chef de cuisine

My Dhaba

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My apologies for the delay in replying back my friends. 

Thank you very much Abra; that looks excellent.  I need to get one for myself to see the calories of all my dishes.  Thanks a ton once again for enlighening me on this.

Doc-G - thank for you the links, quite informative.  I am running through the links now and will get back to you should I have something to clarify.

Malawry - that was an excellent link, yet to study it well for myself, will let you know the results.

Cheers!

Master Cook is probably what you're looking for. I prefer NutritionData because I only have an occasional need for it and I'm a cheapskate. MC costs $20 and ND is free. Nutrition data had the added benefit of being web based and hence accessible from anywhere.

I had about a half dozen ingredients and two or three recipes and my pantry was 3-4% full so it's obviously very limited on space. But you can export ingredients and recipes. It has very complete nutritional information. And you can output a high res graphic summary of the nutritional information in exactly the style that the put on commercially produced packages. I always get a chuckle looking at the nutritional summary that I did for poutine. Also you can't really store recipes - only ingredients.

If you only want a nutrional analysis every once in a while and don't need to rely on keeping the results and don't need to store large numbers of recipes and don't need to filter or otherwise organize the recipes then nutriondata.com should be perfect. Otherwise, you may need to pony up the dough for MC.

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Thank you very much Abra; that looks excellent.  I need to get one for myself to see the calories of all my dishes.  Thanks a ton once again for enlighening me on this.

Master Cook is probably what you're looking for. I prefer NutritionData because I only have an occasional need for it and I'm a cheapskate. MC costs $20 and ND is free. Nutrition data had the added benefit of being web based and hence accessible from anywhere.

I had about a half dozen ingredients and two or three recipes and my pantry was 3-4% full so it's obviously very limited on space. But you can export ingredients and recipes. It has very complete nutritional information. And you can output a high res graphic summary of the nutritional information in exactly the style that the put on commercially produced packages. I always get a chuckle looking at the nutritional summary that I did for poutine. Also you can't really store recipes - only ingredients.

If you only want a nutrional analysis every once in a while and don't need to rely on keeping the results and don't need to store large numbers of recipes and don't need to filter or otherwise organize the recipes then nutriondata.com should be perfect. Otherwise, you may need to pony up the dough for MC.

Stuart - I instantly fell in love with the graphics and summary. Thanks a ton for sharing this info. COOL site! I am quite inspired by its looks and am going to run this for few recipes of my recipes to see the differences before finalizing my purchase. Thank you once again.

VK Narayanan

Chef de cuisine

My Dhaba

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