Cookbook #109: The Complete Book of Food Counts, Corinne T. Netzerk, Dell Publishing, NY, NY, 1988.
I previously discussed one of my calorie reference books: Calories and Carbohydrates by Barbara Kraus. The Complete Book of Food Counts is quite similar; it lists calories, carbohydrates, protein, cholesterol, sodium, fat and fiber of over 8000 foods. Many of the entries are brand-name items (and today you can get their nutrient values on the package). Entries for beef are kind of hard to decipher: are the meats weighed before or after cooking? (This book is still in print: a 9th edition was published in 2012.)
I plan to keep one or two of my calorie-counting references, so I’ll put The Complete Book of Food Counts through a trial run of calculating the number of calories in a recipe.
What recipe? I decide to cook another recipe from the Sunbeam Deluxe Mixmaster Mixer cookbook. Why? I just got the vintage replacement bowl in the mail and want to use it! Here is the recipe for “Applesauce ‘n Oatmeal Loaf”:
Here’s my vintage mixer mixing, for the first time in years!
This bread turned out tasty and wholesome. A bit too wholesome, though! It is kind of dry and heavy, and I doubt I’ll make it again. It did serve its purpose though as a change-of-pace breakfast bread. And, it serves the purpose of testing my book’s usefulness in looking up calories.
Calories in this bread
Here are my results, from The Complete Book of Food Counts and my trusty internet site, Nutrient Facts.
| Netzerk’s book | Internet source | |
| 1 1/2 cups flour | 600 | 675 |
| 1 teaspoon baking powder | 4 | 0 |
| 1 teaspoon baking soda | – | 0 |
| 1/2 teaspoon salt | 0 | – |
| 1 teaspoon cinnamon | 6 | – |
| 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg | 6 | – |
| 2/3 cup brown sugar | 529 | 547 |
| 2 eggs | 158 | 140 |
| 1/2 cup butter | 813 | 810 |
| 1 cup raisins | 488 | 490 |
| 3/4 cup walnuts | 578 | 585 |
| 1 1/2 cups oatmeal (cooked) | 210 | 195 |
| 1 cup applesauce | 106 | 130 (slices) |
Comments on calorie results
As you can see, the calorie values quite similar from both sources.
Time: Netzerk’s book 9 minutes 45 seconds. The internet search on Nutrient Facts took 10 minutes.
Ease of Search: It was almost as easy to use this book as to use the internet, even though there are a lot of extraneous (brand-name) listings to fish through in the book. I was surprised that the times for both searches was about the same. I was also surprised to find the calorie counts for baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in the printed book. Neither source listed dry oatmeal (the value from Quakers Oatmeal box was 450 calories total).
Conclusion: The Complete Book of Food Counts is a decent calorie counter book. I will keep it for those times we are without power!