Food Extracts

[joggerjosh]

My name is Josh, and I recently received a Fitbit last Christmas. I am so pleased with the device. Finally I can make a rough estimate of how much I should consume every day in order to maintain and/or lose weight. Now, I make it a priority to eat mostly foods which are packed in nutrition while not high in calories. 

I have a solid base for my daily diet, which includes oatmeal and oat bran, yogurt, lots of fruit, lots of vegetables, lean protein like poultry and lean ground beef, and whole wheat carbs like wheat bread instead of white. One of my rules to keep myself motivated is that I make something different with these base ingredients every day. 

Recently, I have tried experimenting with my breakfast. I always make a bowl of hot cereal, but the selection varies. I then put in fruit of my choice, cook the cereal in water and almond milk, and top it with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, or cloves. I also like to add a teaspoon of sugar for sweetness and a tablespoon of chopped nuts for energy. 

Okay, so you get the basics. Now the big (well, in my perspective) question. Can I add food extracts like vanilla, coconut, maple, or butter to my breakfast or even my yogurt? More specifically, what are the nutrient facts of these products? I don't want to add more sugar or fat, and I also want to be wary of any caloric intake (every bit matters). I researched online, but I only found vanilla extract nutrient facts. What about the others? Thank you for your input.

[WendyB]

I tried to goggle some of them for the NI and came up with nothing.

One of them came up with 0 calories which I find hard to believe. But most were very low calories wise for a small amount.

Maybe email the manufacturer and see if you can get the info

[Esya]

I use coconut flakes and I never log those. While coconut is dense in calories, if you use flakes you hardly have any real mass of coconut in your food. It takes a lot to get 10 grams. I can look the nutrinional information up when I am home from the package that I have. I think the same applies for vanilla extract. You could consider changing your breakfast even more up by replacing sugar with honey, as honey also has antiseptic qualities (a teaspoon is 20 calories).

Butter is fat and should be in the database, but fat is not (as) bad for you unlike refined sugars. I only limit the amount of fat I eat due to the amount of calories I want to eat in a day. Trans-fats are really bad for you though. Those are created by a process to make liquid fats into solid fats, like for example margarine. When I have butter or yogurt or anything dairy I make sure to have full-fat as that means the food is way less processed. Ofcourse you will eat less of a full-fat product than the skimmed version, but it fills you more too so smaller portions will do.

[MagsOnTheBeach]

Extracts are often bottled in alcohol so I think the calories are going to be about the same for all of them.  If you don't want to use alcohol in your breakfast, people make vanilla sugar by putting a whole vanilla bean in a jar of sugar.  I can't see what that wouldn't work with oatmeal.  When I buy a flavor, I make sure it says "natural" and not "artificial".

I have used the butter flavor in cake icings. I use it when people want bright white icing - you have to use shortening no butter - and that by itself is pretty gross.  So they make a clear butter flavor.  My personal goal is to eat natural things, if I want butter I use less and have butter.

[Esya]

@joggerjosh

@MagsOnTheBeach

Ah, there is a coconut and a butter extract. I learn something new every day. And sorry for misunderstanding.