How to calculate the calorie content of a complex dish

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A simple formula and services that will help you calculate the calorie content of 100 g of any complex dish.

Often, only boiled chicken breast, rice, cucumbers and other simple foods remain in the diet of someone who has gone down the difficult path of calculating calories. To calculate the energy value of a dish, it is enough to weigh it and enter the numbers in a special application.

A calorie counting guru can cook a pot of borscht for a week, goulash, salad, cutlets and always know the energy value of a portion. To do this, you need to learn how to calculate how many calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates are contained in 100 g of a complex dish.

Let's figure out how to do this, using the example of the Olivier salad, which is not the most useful, but relevant on the eve of the New Year.

To prepare the salad you will need:

• 300 g boiled potatoes;
• 300 g of Doctor's sausage;
• 5 eggs;
• 150 g pickles;
• 200 g canned green peas;
• 120 g mayonnaise.

Calculating the mass of the finished dish

Before preparing the dish, each component must be weighed, the results must be recorded.

Another important figure is the final mass of the finished dish. In this case, it will be 1 345 g, taking into account that one C1 egg weighs approximately 55 g. Of course, you will only be able to weigh the finished dish together with the bowl or pan in which it is located. Therefore, determine the mass of the container in advance and subtract this figure from the final one.

Weigh the utensils you use often and write down the readings in a notebook. This will come in handy if you forget to know the weight of the empty bowl.

Calorie counting using a table

We draw up a table in which we prescribe the ingredient, its amount, calorie content for the amount of product used (in this case, for 300 g of boiled potatoes or 120 g of mayonnaise) and the content of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. You can find out the KBZHU product in the calorie counting application.

The table will look something like this:

Ingredient	Quantity, g	Energy value, kcal	Proteins, g	Fat, g	Carbohydrates, g
Boiled potatoes	300	246	6	1, 2	50, 1
Sausage "Doctor"	300	771	78, 4	66, 6	4, 5
Pickles	150	16, 5	1, 2	0, 15	2, 55
Eggs	275	431, 75	34, 92	29, 98	1, 92
Green pea	200	104	9, 6	0, 4	15
Mayonnaise	120	748	3, 72	80, 4	3, 12
Total:	1 345	2 318	93, 84	178, 73	77, 19

To find out how many calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates are in a complex dish, you need to remember the simple rule of proportion - the equality of two ratios:

total calorie content of the dish / weight of the dish = calorie content of one serving / 100 g.

From this proportion, we get a universal formula for calculating the calorie content of a dish:

total calorie content of the dish * 100 / weight of the dish = calorie content in 100 g.

How it works with the example of a table:

2 318, 05 * 100 / 1 345 = 172, 3.

In 100 g of Olivier salad, cooked in strict accordance with the recipe, 172, 3 kcal. This formula is also suitable for calculating macronutrient content. Only instead of the total calorie content, you must substitute the total number of proteins, fats or carbohydrates contained in the dish. For example:

93, 84 * 100/1 345 = 6, 9 g of protein per 100 g of salad;

178.73 * 100/1 345 = 13.3 g of fat per 100 g of lettuce;

77, 19 * 100/1 345 = 5.8 g of carbohydrates per 100 g of salad.

Calorie counting with services

There are not so many services that will calculate the calorie content and content of BJU in a dish for you. They are less accurate than your calculations. The program calculates the final weight of the dish by adding the weight of all the ingredients. This is true if all components are solid. But it does not take into account the degree of evaporation of liquids.

With tabular counting, water can not be weighed due to zero calorie content. Its content will be reflected in the final weight of the dish. For services, the amount of water will have to be taken into account and entered in the appropriate column.

Services for calculating the calorie content of 100 g of a dish were created a long time ago, therefore they are distinguished by an overloaded design and an abundance of advertising. But they will quickly do all the calculations. To do this, you don't even need to register on the sites.

Calorizator.ru

On the Calorizator.ru website, you can calculate how many calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates are contained in 100 g of a dish in the "Food Analyzer" section.

All ingredients must be entered into the table (you can select from the drop-down list) and indicate their quantity.

The service will display numbers that can be entered into your calorie tracking application. By the way, the calculation results coincide with those that were obtained by the formula.

Diets.ru

To calculate the calorie content of a 100 g dish on the Diets.ru website, you need to select the "Calorie calculators" heading, then the "Calorie content calculation of the finished dish" item.

Further, the algorithm of actions is the same: we enter the ingredients and their quantity, we get the final calculations.

On Diets.ru there is an option "Take into account boiling (weight reduction during cooking)", so you can add not boiled, but raw potatoes to the table, and put a tick under the table.

Any of these methods will help to calculate the approximate energy value of a dish, since no service knows how many calories are in a particular apple, piece of meat, a portion of cereal, and how many of them will be absorbed by the body. However, these approximate figures are enough to compose a diet for losing weight or gaining weight.