Question about "As Prepared" Serving Sizes

Pasta Roni may not be the best thing for me, but it's super easy to make, tasty and an easy way to add some carbs/fat. It is basically the pasta version of rice a roni. My question is with the nutrition facts, as you can see even on the "as prepared" side it still talks about how much 1 serving is dry. That is of no help to me since I'm never going to eat it dry. This isn't the first thing I've found to do this, but I figured it's an easy example since I quickly found the nutrition facts online, see picture below. Is the only way to determine the actual calories to weigh everything after it's prepared and then divide the total weight by 2.5 and that would give me my serving size?

PastaRoniNutrition.jpg

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unknown

I usually use the "as packaged" because the added ingredients I use may be different than what they suggest and my serving might differ, too.

A whole package try is 2.5 x 200 cal. = 500 cal. add whatever you like then divide the whole recipe by your serving. If you eat half, divide the total by 2.

unknown

You could alternatively split the prepared pasta into five portions, and eat two of them, since there are about 2.5 servings per container.

unknown

Well, depending on what type of pasta it is, sometimes about.com has info that might help. Last night I had weighed out two 'dry' servings of pasta and cooked it. Just for the heck of it I used google last night and entered "How many calories does 1 cup of cooked penne pasta have?" About.com showed the answer was 1/2 cup of penne = 180 calories. Luckily for me, that matched the nutrition label on the box for one serving.

Another thing I could have done was add up total servings in the box. Then divide by the number of servings I actually ate. For example, rather than try to eyeball 2.5 servings, divide it up into two and do the math.

unknown

I think weighing it and dividing would work, generally; that's how I calculate serving size on a lot of my homemade stuff that's hard to portion.

When it comes to "as prepared" stuff like this, I actually just cave and use cups instead of my scale. I figure the margin for error isn't the worst thing, if it's only one item every so often. (For me, it's macaroni and cheese -- possibly my favorite sometimes food.)

That said, you could also measure out the serving dry, and then prepare it individually. I've done that with some things, like packaged rice meal things. It requires minor mental maneuvering when determining how much water/butter/etc to use, but it ensures that you know what's going on in terms of serving size.

unknown

It sounds like you have the right idea - weigh the end product and divide by 2.5 to determine the as prepared calories. I am like a PP and I prefer to use the as packaged NI in the recipe builder with the things I add so that it's more accurate, but you still would weigh the end product and divide by 2.5. If it's something that I know only I will be eating over the next few days, I often don't even bother weighing. If I know I have 2 1/2 servings and I eyeball my servings, I know that in the end as long as I log 2 1/2 servings I've logged all of the calories I've eaten. I do this with some recipes and with blocks of cheese.

unknown

Yeah, I prepare it as directed with 2% milk and a little butter so I guess it's just a matter of next time I make it I can weigh everything just portion it out that way. Just a little bit more of a pain in the butt, but I guess once I do it once for each flavor combination they have I'll have it set up in MFP and it will be easy from there.

I just don't get why they are allowed to put serving sizes in the dry food when they very well know that no one will ever eat it dry.

unknown

I figure out the calories of the entire box, as packaged, add the calories of everything I add, then weigh the entire dish.

I then get my plate out and weigh what I put on my plate and figure out my calorie intake that way. If I was near my calorie limit for the day I might work backwords...figure out how much of the dish it would take to reach that limit and dish out just that much.

unknown

teez52 wrote: »

Yeah, I prepare it as directed with 2% milk and a little butter so I guess it's just a matter of next time I make it I can weigh everything just portion it out that way. Just a little bit more of a pain in the butt, but I guess once I do it once for each flavor combination they have I'll have it set up in MFP and it will be easy from there.

I just don't get why they are allowed to put serving sizes in the dry food when they very well know that no one will ever eat it dry.

Well, putting the serving sizes as packaged is the only way to list accurate nutrition information. The calorie count for 2% milk can vary from brand to brand and some people might choose to use whole milk, some might use skim milk. Some people might use butter, some might use margarine. Some might add the dry ingredients to something else entirely and not follow the directions at all. If they don't have the NI for the ingredients in the box alone, how is anyone else to figure out their calorie count? I use 1% milk and many boxed foods call for 2% milk. I would be a bit annoyed if I couldn't figure out the calories of the food how *I* was preparing it.