Calculating Calories and Nutrients in Restaurant Meals

It is not always feasible to calculate nutrition information for all of your recipes, but having information for some of your meal
nothing at all. Calculating nutrition information for more standard recipes is a great place to start.

We hope you find the following suggestions on how to calculate calorie and nutrient information in three scenarios helpful:
1). Single Ingredient Meals 2). Recipes and Mixed Dishes 3). Full Meals

Calculating Calories and Nutrients in Single Ingredient Meals

The calorie and nutrient content of single ingredients and individual foods can usually be found in the USDA’s National Nutrien
most packaged foods list information in the Nutrition Facts panel. Follow the steps below to find nutrition information for a sin
1. Go to the USDA Nutrient Database at http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/list.
2. Search and select food item of interest. Sometimes there are multiple options (e.g. chicken breast with and withou
etc.) so choose the option that is the best match for the food you are using.
3. Input the amount of food and click “apply changes.” Note that the values are given in grams, which is the same un
Facts label.
a. For example, if you want to know the calorie content of 2 cups of a food item, adjust the numerical value
“cup”
b. to unit
Other 2. conversions may sometimes be necessary if the unit of interest is not an available option. For e
know the calorie content of 8 oz of a food item but the value for 100 grams is available, then you will need t
value in the column titled ‘value per 100 grams’ to 2.27.
1 oz = 28.4 grams
8 oz = 227 grams (8 x 28.4 grams)
227 grams/100 grams = 2.27 (so you would need 2.27 times the 100 gram value)

1. A useful conversion tool is http://www.epicurious.com/tools/conversions/common.

2. Calorie information is the second row and is titled “Energy.” Other nutrients commonly reported are in the rows im
protein, total fat, carbohydrate and total dietary fiber. Sodium is in the section titled “Minerals” and saturated fat, un
cholesterol are located in the section titled “Lipids.”

Calories, nutrients and weights displayed for each food are for the edible portion of food (for example – without bon

Calculating Calories for Recipes and Mixed Dishes

A lot of the foods we eat have more than one ingredient. For example, a chicken breast is rarely prepared plain and may includ
during cooking, a sauce added afterward, or other ingredients. Multi-ingredient recipes can be calculated by entering data for
ingredient into a MS Excel® spreadsheet that has been set up for this purpose. The spreadsheet gives you the option to list ho
recipe makes and will calculate the calories and nutrients per serving. Follow the steps below to calculate the nutrition inform
ingredient food or recipe.
1. Type the names and amounts of each ingredient into the spreadsheet.
2. Go to http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/list. Determine calories and nutrients for each individual ingredient in th
described above.
3. Enter the data into the spreadsheet and it will add up values for the total recipe. When you enter the number of se
will determine calories and nutrients per serving.

Calculating Calories for Full Meals

Typically a meal consists of several different foods, some of which may be recipes that contain multiple ingredients. An examp
(recipe with multiple ingredients) with a side of rice (single ingredient). Calorie and nutrient values for meals can be calculated
for the individual ingredients and for the single serving portion of recipes into a downloadable MS Excel® spreadsheet that is s
Follow the steps below to calculate the nutrition information for a meal.
1. Type the names of the ingredients and the recipes, along with the amounts of each into the spreadsheet.
 2. Go to http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/list and look up the calories and nutrients for each individual ingredient i
Use the Recipe Calculator to determine the calories and nutrients for a single serving of the recipes in the meal.
3. Enter the information into the Meal Calculator spreadsheet which will sum calories and nutrients giving you values

Notes
The USDA database does contain some ready calculated meals. However, we recommend you calculate for your own dishes a
that the composition is accurate for your own recipes.

Remember, the more precise you can be with the exact food, amount, and servings per recipe, the more accurate the calories
be. Also be aware of often forgotten ingredients such as oil, butter, or broth used in cooking.

The methods described above assume that all of the fat used in cooking is consumed. For deep fried items, however, selected
directly from the USDA database.
Recipe: Values are rounded to the nearest whole number

Amount Gram Calories Carbo- Saturated Choles-

Ingredient Servings Amount Unit weight ( Energy) Protein Total Fat hydrate Fiber Sodium Fat terol
(g) (calories) (g) (g) (g) (g) (mg) (g) (mg)
Recipe:

Totals
Recipe: Whole recipe 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Per single serving #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0!
Meal: Values are rounded to the nearest whole number

Amount Gram Calories Carbo- Saturated Choles-

Ingredient Servings Amount Unit weight ( Energy) Protein Total Fat hydrate Fiber Sodium Fat terol
(g) (calories) (g) (g) (g) (g) (mg) (g) (mg)
Recipe 1:

Recipe 2:

Recipe 3:

Totals per Serving

Recipe 1: Per single serving #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0!
Recipe 2: Per single serving #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0!
Recipe 3: Per single serving #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0!
Meal: Per single serving #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0! #DIV/0!
Example scenario: Rice and sauce are made ahead of time in large quantities. Stir-fry is made to order by scooping out pre-cut ingredients. A single order is composed of 1 cup of rice, 1/2
cup of sauce and 1 order of stir fry.

Meal: Chicken Stir Fry Values are rounded to the nearest whole number

Amount Gram Calories, Carbo- Saturated Choles-

Ingredient Servings Amount Unit weight "Energy" Protein Total Fat hydrate Fiber Sodium Fat terol
(g) (calories) (g) (g) (g) (g) (mg) (g) (mg)
Recipe 1: Rice 60
Rice, white, long-grain, regular, cooked 60 Cups 9480 12323 255 27 2670 38 98 7 0
Recipe 2: Sauce 80
soy sauce (Tamari) 25 Cups 7200 4320 757 7 401 58 402192 1 0
brown sugar 6.5 Cups 1375 5225 2 0 1349 0 385 0 0
cornstarch 2 Cups 256 975 1 0 234 2 23 0 0
sesame oil 6.5 Cups 1363 12044 0 1363 0 0 0 193 0
Recipe 3: Stir Fry 1
Peanut oil 2 Tbs 27 239 0 27 0 0 0 5 0
chicken breast, meat only, cooked, fried 0.5 pound 227 424 76 11 1 0 179 0 24
ginger root, raw 1 Tsp 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
garlic, raw 1 Tsp 3 4 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
red or cayenne pepper 0.125 Tsp 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
green bell pepper (chopped) 0.5 Cups 75 15 1 0 3 1 2 0 0
broccoli (chopped or diced) 0.5 Cups 44 15 1 0 3 1 15 0 0
carrots (chopped) 0.5 Cups 64 26 1 0 6 2 44 0 0
onion (chopped) 0.5 Cups 80 32 1 0 7 1 3 0 0

Totals per Serving

Recipe 1: Rice Per single serving 158 205 4 0 45 1 2 0 0
Recipe 2: Sauce Per single serving 127 282 9 17 25 1 5033 2 0
Recipe 3: Stir Fry Per single serving 522 757 79 38 23 6 244 5 24
Meal: Chicken Stir Fry Per single serving 807 1244 93 56 92 7 5278 8 24