Hi,
I just joined the forum after purchasing the BSD Book and the 8 week BSD Recipe Book.

2 days before I bought the books, I had just made my own humus so know roughly the calories included in a serving so I was interested to see another recipe for Humus on page 71 of the Recipe Book. I thought the calorie count was rather low for the ingredients and quantities listed. It claims 4 servings at 210 Calories per serving.

I checked out the calorie count of the recipe at myfitnesspal.com and it confirmed that the actual calories per serving were 329, not 210.

These were the calories for the ingredients:
Chick Peas (Napolina Tinned), 400 g = 504 Cals
Lemon juice, raw, 3 tbsp(s) = 10 Cals
Sainsbury’s – Olive Oil – Extra Virgin, 6 Tbsp ( 1 Tbsp = 15ML, so 90ml) = 741 Cals
Tahini – Tahini, 4 tsp(s) = 40 Cals
Garlic, raw, 2 cloves = 8 Cals
Ground Cumin, 1 tsp = 7 cals
Spices, paprika, 1 tsp = 6 cals

Total Calories : 1,316
Cals Per Serving : 329

Per serving the 2 main ingredients are Olive Oil and Chick Peas. Chickpeas are 126 Calories per 100gm, Olive Oil is about 124 Calories per Tablespoon (15ml) so 1.5 tablespoons is 186 Calories, added together they far exceed 210.

Is there a typo on the quantities on the ingredient list in the Book?
Is the number of servings wrong?
I would say this recipe makes 6 servings at 220 calories rather than 4 servings at 210, so my advice would be amend the recipe and just eat less of it.

Although I am sure this recipe is fine, it does rather undermine my confidence in the calorie count of all the other recipes in the book, though I haven’t checked any others yet and this may be an exception, but perhaps the authors, editors and publishers of the book would like to take note.

Hey Charlie W – Welcome aboard the BSD ‘fun bus’!

Other have identified issues with the calorie counts on recipes in the book too and have flagged these on the forum before. I have personally never followed these, but have always done my own thing, as many others have too, however, a lot of people use the recipes and meal plans as per the book and still lose weight successfully. It is entirely up to you how you decide to apply the BSD going forward.

I hope whatever you decide to do, you will soon be reporting positive results … Good Luck.

Hi folks – I got the recipe book and started on the BSD about three weeks before my copy of the BSD book arrived (I had to order it in), and I found the recipe book plus the website contained sufficient information to start on the BSD. When the BSD book arrived, I was relieved to know I’d been following it to the letter 🙂 I think the recipe book is fantastic – I have always loved cooking, and the recipe book showed me that I could still have fun cooking delicious food, and taught me a whole bunch of new ideas and ways of preparing food. Fantastic!

I’m four weeks in now and loving the diet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in life.

BUT…. the calorie counts are often underestimated (as pointed out by others above), or sometimes inconsistent. For example, compare the ‘Apple and Cinnamon Porridge’ with ‘Spicy Fruit Porridge’ (they are on pp 34 and 36 of the Australian and New Zealand Edition). They have _exactly_ the same ingredients and quantities, except that the latter also has ‘a knob of butter’. Yet the calorie count is given as 260 for the former, and 210 for the latter – so, the knob of butter somehow ‘removes’ 50 calories from what is otherwise an identical list of ingredients 🙂 ??

Also, some recipes list ingredients and then don’t tell you what to do with them… like they are accidentally left out of the instructions. Luckily I could use my imagination and figure it out.

But I hope there will be a corrected edition before too long.

And having said all, that, when I make something out of the book (which is about half of the time) I just use the calorie count as in the book, and my progress on the BSD with regard to weight and waist circumference has been fantastic.

Hi, I have similar issues too.
The calories, fat , protein etc listed is that per serving?
Or what I mean is if the recipe states serves 4 would you then divide that list into 4 to make it per serving?
Not sure if I’m over thinking or just thick as 💩

Per serving. Don’t worry, people ask about it all the time. 🙂

Most of the recipes are pretty close with about 10% leeway but it is best to do your own checks. I lower the calories by sometimes leaving things out i.e. there is a recipe that calls for pine nuts which I dont like, leave out and reduce by x amount of calories. The problem I had with the hummus recipe is that it would probably serve 5 for me as I found it very dense and filling so that would bring the calories down.

Thanks very much….I’m doing my own checks too…just to be safe 😃