How to accurately measure cooked foods?

HappyQuella

I need help from those of you who weigh your food. When you bake/ roast things, do you record the weight before or after you cook it. My potato was 175 grams before I cooked it and 152 after. Trying to record to most accurate measurement. Thanks!

futuremanda

I could be wrong but I've always done it to how you put it in the diary. So if you search "potato" you get options like "raw" or "cooked, flesh, with salt" and if you choose raw, enter 175g, and if you choose cooked, enter 152g.

Just make sure that you enter the oil separately, and don't use any options that include it -- i.e. "potatoes fried in olive oil" because that's more of a guess than you weighing your potato, carefully measuring the oil, and putting them in separately.

ShannonMpls

^^ very good answer.

I weigh raw whenever feasible, because cooking method and timing can alter cooked weight but raw is more consistent. for instance, take 120 grams of raw chicken. If you cook it beautifully, it will be moister and therefore weigh more than if you overcooked it. You'll be underestimating if you weigh the overcooked version and record it.

That's just nitpicky details, though. As long as the database entry matches the way you weighed the food, you're pretty good.

ana3067

futuremanda wrote: »

I could be wrong but I've always done it to how you put it in the diary. So if you search "potato" you get options like "raw" or "cooked, flesh, with salt" and if you choose raw, enter 175g, and if you choose cooked, enter 152g.

Just make sure that you enter the oil separately, and don't use any options that include it -- i.e. "potatoes fried in olive oil" because that's more of a guess than you weighing your potato, carefully measuring the oil, and putting them in separately.

Yup. raw, cooked, doesn't matter. Just use the entry that corresponds to how you weighed it. I do raw for individual servings, cooked if I make a big serving (e.g. pot of rice, huge salmon that isn't a recipe, etc).

HappyQuella

Thanks all, I never paid attention to that!