Some Useful Online Recipe Nutrition Calculators For Managing Type 2 Diabetes
What’s your first thought when I say, “homemade meals”? It may be your award-winning chili, or your signature pasta dish, or your family’s favorite comfort food. Whatever food just came to mind, now what would you think if I then asked you to tell me the nutrition facts of that meal.
Huh? What? Whyyyy?
Well, a common question I get asked during our group classes, mostly by the female spouses of the male participants, is how do I calculate the carbohydrates, protein, and fat in my homemade meal? Think breaded chicken parmesan, casseroles, soups, and all things ‘Taco Tuesday’. Have you ever tried to ballpark guess the nutrients in those meals? Maybe you immediately thought “No!” or perhaps some things are better left unknown, like Grandma’s Four Cheese Bolognese Lasagna, for instance. But, for those really looking to fine-tune their nutrition and track their meals, adding those homemade recipes is part of the puzzle. Without adding in each ingredient in the recipe, most people underestimate the portion size they consumed to be able to get an accurate calculation.
Here are a few apps/websites that help in this endeavor (in no particular order).
1. RecipeIQ: Recipe Calculator
This is a free app that gives you several options to calculate your favorite recipes. On the main screen you can choose from four options: calculate from photo, calculate from web page, calculate my own recipe, or access your saved recipes. I found this app to be very easy and straight-forward. I tried all the options and felt like it is definitely a tool I could use on a regular basis whenever I needed to figure out the nutrition breakdown of a new recipe.
After accessing this webpage, there are several icons to choose from. Click ‘Recipes”. Then about a quarter of the way down the page click ‘View More’. The very last option is ‘Recipe Nutrition Calculator’. Again, this is another super easy option. Using their words, “Enter your ingredients, click on ‘Analyze Recipe’, and then ‘get your Nutrition Facts label’. The one downfall of this website is that is seems it is best for a quick recipe look-up and not necessarily for use on a regular basis since the save option isn’t as easy as the apps. The only save option is to embed the code to copy and paste. If you are going to go through the hassle of adding in all the ingredients of a recipes and their amounts I, personally, would rather it be stored somewhere that I could easily access it again.
I like My Fitness Pal for many reasons, but mostly because it is easy. Once you have the free app and get it all set up to your goals, your first task when tracking your meals will be to add in a food or in this case a recipe. When adding a food, simply click the plus sign in the top right corner and click ‘Create a Recipe’. You are then given the option to ‘Add from the Web’ (if your recipe is online) or you can ‘Enter Ingredients Manually’. If you put in the initial work, it’s done and always there for you. It may seem like a pain, but you are rewarded immediately with what you were seeking. It’s a small price to pay for the ease of accessing it on future dates. You then get the complete breakdown of calories, carbohydrates, protein, fats, etc.
4. Calorie Counter
Another free app that is similar to My Fitness Pal, Calorie Counter has a lot of great features. I really like the Add Recipe option. The features in this app seem to be a little more advanced than My Fitness Pal, in my opinion. It is very easy to navigate and is a helpful tool to use on a regular basis.
In closing, if you are looking to gain access to your most treasured recipes’ nutrition information, any one of the above tools will help you do so. There are also many more apps and websites available, these four were just ones I test drove myself. Try them out.
Comment below if there are any other Recipe Nutrition Calculators that you have tried.
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