Veggie Counts and Recipes

[PrinceJeff]

I sort of had the thought to expand on an older topic of mine, "menu planning". What I am hoping to figure out is how to count certain things in recipes towards the daily vegetable count during induction and beyond as well.

For example:

Beef Burgers w/ Feta and Tomato

2 servings
2 net carbs per serving

1 green onion chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach
1/4 cup chopped tomato
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill or 3/4 teaspoon dried
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Or this:

Broccoli Florets w/ Lemon Butter Sauce

4 servings
4 net carbs per serving

1 large head broccoli, broken into florets
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon lemon juice, divided
1/2 stick (2 ounces) cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
salt
white pepper

The carb counts and cheese count (burger recipe) are easy enough, but how would these be figured towards "2 cups of X and 1 of Y if X is no more than 2 cups, or three cups of X"?

[Desertthorn]

I use fitday, as it will tell you things like how many carbs a spinach leaf has and how much a cup has, but sometimes you just have to questimate. Check out www.fitday.com though and play around with it.

[PrinceJeff]

Fitday is a good tool, although I am not confused by carb numbers at all. It's just where DANDR says you can have 2 cups of salad veggies and 1 cup of stuff like onion and spinach or three cups of salad veggies per day. HOLY RUNON SENTENCE BATMAN!

I just don't know how, for example, if I ate both those burgers in the recipe how much veggies I would have left for the day. I would assume since the burger recipe uses veggies that can be cooked that it would still leave me 2 cups of salad the rest of my day, lol.

[sallyseachange]

I count the carbs for each veg separately of course, but I try to have a visual on how much of a cup each veg is....so if I have say 1/4 of a cup of onions, 1/2 a cup of spinach and another 1/4 cup of broccoli... that's your one cup of 'other veggies'. As Desertthorn says, a bit of guestimation!
Sal

[yemenitegreen]

Well, over here in Europe cups aren't used on a daily basis for measuring stuff. While I stay in the range of 'cups' Dr. A. gave, I calculate my carbs by using a food scale (weighing food instead of guesstimating cups) and a carb / calorie counter (printed). Since in induction we are supposed to get at least 50 % of our carbs from veggies, it is quite easy to follow up on that - if I don't have 10 carbs from vegs, I need to eat more...

yemenitegreen

[SugarFreeSheila]

I use this website very regularly: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

[not2late]

Originally Posted by PrinceJeff

Fitday is a good tool, although I am not confused by carb numbers at all. It's just where DANDR says you can have 2 cups of salad veggies and 1 cup of stuff like onion and spinach or three cups of salad veggies per day. HOLY RUNON SENTENCE BATMAN!

I just don't know how, for example, if I ate both those burgers in the recipe how much veggies I would have left for the day. I would assume since the burger recipe uses veggies that can be cooked that it would still leave me 2 cups of salad the rest of my day, lol.

For the burgers, the total recipe uses 1/2 cup spinach and 1/4 cup tomato. Both of these vegetables are listed in the "other vegetable" list in DANDR 2002. So, if you eat both burgers, you've eaten 3/4 cup of the "other vegetable list" veggies. That means you can eat another 1/4 cup of the "other" vegetables plus the 2 cups of the salad list veggies and still be within your daily vegetable limits.

For the broccoli casserole, breakdown the whole broccoli into florets as the recipe dictates. Then measure the broccoli florets. For example, if your broccoli breaks down into 4 cups of broccoli florets, then 1/4 of the dish will be approximately 1 cup of broccoli.