Calculating Marinade
 

Can someone enlighten me as to calculating the nutritional data for a marinade that gets tossed out? I thought I'd just measure the amount left after marinating, but there's more left AFTER marinating. Duh, should have thought that one out!

I'm thinking not to even include it in my totals. It must be marginal anyway.

Wanda

Well what was in it?

Hi Lisa:

Thought I wrote that down. Sorry. Equal portions of red wine & olive oil.

Bah! I wouldn't bother worrying about it. :)

As meat sits, or when you use salt in a marinade, it draws moisture out of the meat. But, you probably knew that. And as it cooks, the moisture drawn out of the meat makes more of the marinade drip off.

'Ya know, you can make what I call a "tight" marinade. If you're doing a steak for example, 1 Tbsp. each of olive oil and wine is enough to season it.

I could never figure out recipes that had meat drowning in marinade. It's a waste unless you use it in the actual cooking of the meat, like in a stew. :rolleyes:

Karen

:thup: I agree Karen, why waste good wine eh?
That reminds me I'm out of the rub on stuff, not so much waste.

Cheers Kathy

Hi Wanda,

I'm with the people above, wouldn't bother counting it. I just made a marinade that should be suitable for induction, soy sauce, lemon jus, hot sauce, grated ginger and garlic, its for chicken thighs and I pierced the meat and scored the skin to enable it to penetrate better. When it comes time to enter it in FitDay I only plan on entering chicken thighs - none of the other.
:)

Hey thanks guys! It DID seem a bit pointless trying to track something like that.

I have to admit that being a vegetarian for 17 years has made my "red meat" preparation skills a little lacking.

Not really enjoying the actual taste of meat, I've been able to brine, then smoke my meats with great success. But "they" say not to brine or smoke red meat. So I found the above marinade in PP's book. I'm with you Karen. I do find it a bit of a waste. I'm not concerned about the wine (I have a collection of "gift" wines), it's the darned expensive olive oil. ;)

I should have watched my mother's meat prep more carefully when I was growing up, huh? ;)

Wanda

ok, I made a roast last night. It had a can of cream of mushroom soup in it, and a can of mushrooms.

the soup was 23 g carbs
canned mushrooms 7 grams


so how do I know what I consumed?

How do I figure it out?

:)

That sounds more like a sauce than a marinade, I would total up all the carbs and then figure how many portions the recipie would be and divide the carbs by the portions to get the per serving carb count. (ie. if the carbs for recipe totalled 60 and it made 10 servings the each serving would be 6 carbs).

This is assuming that the canned soup and mushrooms were eaten with the roast and not discarded.

:wave:

I am of the opinion that a marinade that is discarded can generally be overlooked when portioning individual services.

However, some brines and marinades do call for high amounts of sugar, or sweetened flavorings like ketchup, molasses, honey, etc. Now I've not actually done the research to see how much of that gets absorbed by the meat as it takes on the flavors, but I'd like to get a reasoned opinion on the matter. (I use a variation of Alton Brown's brine solution for turkey, and with this plan I see myself eating turkey more than twice a year... :D )

Rrrr. That should be "...when portioning individual servings "

I, too, generally skip the marinade when calculating carbs, but Atkins (in DANDR) suggests that adding 1/2 the calculated marinade carbs is appropriate. In the case of a little red wine and olive oil, the difference is irrelevant.

Haha - I'm a dork - I always count ALL the carbs that go into my marinades. I guess I could limit the count, but I'm always rounding up everything to make sure that I don't go above my daily carb count (seems that there are always hidden carbs in something - better safe than sorry in my book).