Ounces vs. fluid ounces

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Alibaeee
Alibaeee Posts: 9
in Food and Nutrition
So lately, I just figured out the different between ounces and fluid ounces. Meaning I've been measuring my food wrong and I'm curios about the calories I've been in taking. 1 cup of ceral is 110 calories. I've been measuring 1/2 cup of calories in a liquid ounces and making it 55 calories. Would the weight ounces make a difference ?? Along with other food? Like I measured half a cup of corn too.

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  • PowerfulHunt
    PowerfulHunt Posts: 281 Member
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    You should only use fluid ounces or cups to measure liquids. For food, it is more accurate to weigh it in grams.
  • sjaplo
    sjaplo Posts: 974 Member
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    A fluid oz is a measure of volume - an oz is a measure of weight. So with cereal, based on the type, there would be different spaces between the flakes (or puffed rice etc) so it should be measured for weight. So a cup of Rice Krispies might be a diffrent measure than a cup of corn flakes, but if you weight them, you can calculate the number of cals.

    Personally I'm fairly loosey goosey with my measurements, but then I'm not in a hurry and don't have a lot to lose. But if you have only 1200 cal per day to deal with, then that 55 cals in your example above puts you at 1255, and that's only one measurement error. If half of your daily cals are off by 50 cals - suddenly you are at 1500/ day.
  • AlisonH729
    AlisonH729 Posts: 558 Member
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    As opposed to starting a new thread, I'm going to ask a related question:

    I've recently started buying the larger containers of plain Greek yogurt and weighing out 6oz for breakfast. Today I thought, 'This seems like a lot more than I used to get in the (plain) 6oz individual containers'. Followed by, 'Aw crap is it weight or volume?' But the nutrition information lists grams, which is a weight. I've been using oz. for some arbitrary reason but it matches to MFP, which I also hope is correct. If were fl. oz the package would specify, right?

    For example:
    Milk is listed in fl. oz. but Silk is not.
    College Inn broth, oz. But I would consider it a fluid.
    Pasta sauce, oz. Though I often portion it out by volume.

    Now I'm all confused... Is there a general rule I'm missing to help me determine which unit to use?

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