Calorie Counts that seem inaccurate - should I trust any of them?

My college cafeteria lists the calorie counts of their food on the website. The only problem, some of them seem WILDLY inaccurate. For example, the have a granola and yogurt parfait that obviously someone made a typo and listed it as 14 calories. The egg white omlette is listed as 10 cals with very little protein. I don't eat the yogurt parfait and I know the calorie counts of egg whites so that's not a problem. But because I know the website is wrong with these things, it makes me doubt every number I see on there. For example, I checked the menu today and decided that "salmon in dill sauce" with a baked sweet potato and steamed brocolli seemed like the best/most healthy option that I wanted. So the fillet of salmon in the sauce is 407 cals. Makes sense. Then I click on the sweet potato and it's 800-SOMETHING CALS WITH 60 GRAMS OF FAT! That cannot be! So should I trust the calorie counts that seem reasonable or would I be better off just taking a shot in the dark? I already wrote them an email requesting more accurate calorie counts for those students watching their weight or trying to make healthy choices. But I'm pretty confused! should I still get the sweet potato? how big could it be??

I don't happen to think that catering establishments can accurately state calorie-counts.  Unlike factories where everything is weighed and measured out according to strict recipes and subject to quality and portion control a college cafeteria isn't anything like as regimented.  And the info on factory produced goods is only 80% accurate by law.  Chain restaurants take advantage of the fact that the crap they serve is at least uniformly sized... but knowing the calories doesn't make it any healthier.   In a 'real' restaurant with real food it only takes a cook to add an extra few dollops of butter to the mashed potato or for a server to dish up a slightly bigger portion one day than the next and the calorie counts are all over the place.  Which is why anyone that eats out often will find it really tough to lose weight.

Really, the only way to be reasonably sure of what you're eating is to prepare it for yourself or to stick to very plain, easily identifiable foods.   Baked sweet potato shouldn't be too difficult to nail...  

I wish I had that option. When I lived at home I would either cook for myself or my mom would cook almost every night (one night a week we ate out). The thing is, now I go to a very expensive college hundreds of miles away from home. The meal plan is required for freshman and it was $2100. It includes only cafeteria food. No, I cannot ditch my meal plan and buy groceries and cook in the microwave. I have instant oatmeal in my room and some kashi golean but girl cannot live off of that alone. I have to learn to adapt to the cafeteria. 

I try to eat easy to recognize foods that are easy to get the calorie count for, but sometimes I want the "meal" that they're serving for dinner and I'm wondering if I should trust the calorie counts on the website at all. My instinct usually tells me which is the best anyway (mac and cheese = bad, steamed vegetables = good) but I just would like to get a good measure of how many cals I'm eating. For example, a lot of times I have the grilled cheese on wheat for lunch which the website lists as 350 cals. That sound reasonable to me for the size, but then it goes and lists other food as totally wrong. I wish it were easier to eat healthier at college, hopefully next year I'll have a kitchen.

I have used CC for pretty much everything I eat and I have been losing about 2 lbs. per week consistently... but somethings if the count seems too low I just over estimate it a bit!

A really easy way to guesstimate a meal of 450-550 cals is to use some visual portion control.

1/2 plate vegetables/salads

1/4 plate (4-6oz) complex carbohydrate

1/4 plate (4-5oz) lean protein

a little fat/sauce/dressing

That works back to a fairly consistent amount