FAQ: Why don't you post recipe nutritional stats?

WHY DON'T YOU PUBLISH NUTRITION INFORMATION OR SERVING SIZES WITH YOUR RECIPES?

Official Polite Answer: We believe that barring specific medical advice to the contrary, if you're eating whole healthy foods that include a variety of lean meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy and healthy fats and oils, you probably don't need to stress about the numbers - the POUCH handles portion and volume. We prefer to focus on food quality and trust our four-ounce bariatric pouch to tell us what we need.

The skinny is that even Martha Stewart does not post stats or serving sizes on her website. Bloggers have created a climate where we should not trust the stats posted on an 'internet recipe' - every day I see recipes that I know are intentionally mislabeled. People make up crazy stuff and call it sugar-free or low carb so they are popular and get the highest number of Pinterest 'pins'. As a form of protest, along with Martha, Emeril, Giada, et al, we do not post stats.

Anyone can cut a serving size in 1/2 or 1/20 to make ANYTHING seem low carb, low sugar, or low calorie. It is critical that we learn to calculate and assess our own recipes. I could make a super rich REAL chocolate cake with icing like the one in the picture, made with real sugar and cut the serving size to where you would believe it was healthy, sugar-free and bariatric friendly! Watch me.

As for Serving Size: The amount that each post-op is able to eat varies so greatly based on when they had their surgery, that offering up a Serves 4 or Serves 6 would be giving false information and encourage Clean Plate Club membership instead of listening to your pouch for signs of satiety and fullness. How many a recipe serves depends on how much you can eat!

The whole is the sum of its parts. If each ingredient is a good choice food, the recipe made from these ingredients is a good choice too!

Furthermore, few people follow a recipe exactly. If you used shrimp instead of chicken, added cheese and left out the broccoli, the Nutrition Stats would be for the ingredients we used, not yours.

So rather than get mad at me because I don't calculate stats, TAKE YOUR LIFE INTO YOUR OWN HANDS AND LEARN TO IDENTIFY THE FOODS YOU SHOULD NOT EAT! If a recipe has cream cheese, heavy cream, lots of butter, sugar, bacon, more than 1/2 cup of flour, if CHEESE is the main ingredient, if it has potatoes maple syrup or honey, you can rule it out now.

The best way to move through post-op life is to follow the Protein First rule and learn to calculate your own nutrition stats as they apply to your portion and choice of ingredients using an online app such as My Fitness Pal.