BigOven

i have a recipe for which i'm trying to get the nutrional analysis.  this 16 serving recipe has 2 cups of sugar in it.  the sugar is a standard ingredient and when i checked it was linked to the USDA info.  when i do the analysis, the recipe says it has 51 calories!  2 cups of sugar divided by 16 is nearly 100 calories, something is wrong here.  is there something else i need to do to get the ingredients to display the nutritional info correctly?

oh, and by the by, computerized nutritional analysis should not be this cumbersome.  i could have looked up each ingredient on the web and figured it out by hand in the time it is taking me to do this.  perhaps you could have a tutorial or a new programmer?  it is just not, in any way, shape or form, intuitive.

thanks for your time.

Something's not quite correct in the way you're setting either serving size or the item in the ingredients list.

The USDA entry for "SUGARS, GRANULATED" says that 1 cup of sugar = 774 calories.  2 cups of sugar = 1548 calories.

I created a test recipe (click "new recipe" on the toolbar).  Then I, changed the "Base Serving Makes" to "1 Serving" (at the bottom of the edit tab), and added 2 cups of sugar to it.  The nutrition facts correctly show 1548 calories, as expected.

I then changed the base recipe to 16 servings, and it shows 97 calories, as expected. Properly linked sugar should indeed come out to 97 calories per serving. 

We can help diagnose this if you tell us what the individual ingredients are linked-to. 

 i am not understanding.  i tried what you said.  it did not work.  sugar is a basic ingredient, all the nutritional info should be in there.  i should just be able to add it to my recipe and the pre-programmed info should be there.  why would it be missing?  servings are 16, and there is 1 cup of sugar in two different spots in the recipe. 

all of the ingredients are linked to the USDA values.

BigOven remembers links over time.  I'm not sure which version you downloaded, but for the past year or so, "Sugar" has been one of the pre-populated links.  Regardless, it's really simple to define it once, and then BigOven will remember it for you.

What I did was:

1)  Launched BigOven

2)  Clicked "New" on the toolbar to create a new recipe.  I called it "Test Recipe". 

3)  Clicked on the Edit tab.  Changed serving size to 16 servings for this recipe.

3)  Enter the following for the first ingredient on the "add" line:

2 <Tab>   cups <tab>  Sugar <enter>

BigOven adds the ingredient line and turns it orange.  If it didn't simply double-click on the ingredient line marker (the scale icon for that line) and match it up with "SUGARS, GRANULATED".  If you entered the quantity and units in the right fields, BigOven should recognize that it's 2 cups and be ready to link.  Click the link button.  (You may have to then force a save/commit by, for example, moving to another recipe and then coming back to it), and then you can view the Nutrition tab for the Test recipe you entered. It'll show 97 calories for the recipe.