Volume to weight conversion

gnerre13

This may be a a silly question but does anyone know how to convert volume to weight or vice versa?? Or is my question incorrect altogether.... Lets say i search steamed broccoli in mfp database. It gives me the calorie and nutrition stats based on 1cup. Now is that 1cup in terms of a measuring cup? That doesnt seem like a lot at all. I have a very good food scale that i use as much as possible. Obviously a cup is 8 oz... But that is not equivalent to 8 oz in weight correct?? I guess that's where my prob lies. Id like to log my food in as correctly as possible. So if i put my steamed broccoli on my food scale and it weighs 6 oz, what would the conversion be? That's 3/4 cup in volume terms but the actual amount of broccoli on the scale is way more than would fit in a measuring cup. I hope i was able to explain. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.....

tinascar2015

A cup of water is 8 oz. A cup of broccoli isn't. I never measure things like broccoli or cauliflower in a measuring cup. You never know how small it was cut up when it was entered into the database and there's a whole lot of air space between the florets. That's why I hunt through a lot of listings for the same food until I find one that has the portion sizes in a format that makes more sense. You can probably find another listing that tells you the nutritional info by weight.

That wasn't a silly question, by the way!

Alatariel75

It completely depends on the item you're measuring. A cup of desicated coconut will weigh far less than a cup of raw rice. So there is no conversion, because the two measurements simply don't equate.

Other foods will vary in weight of a cup by how much you pack in. Grated cheese comes to mind, a packed down cup of grated cheese can weigh over twice as much as a loosely packed cup. The size of the grate changes it too, as there will be more or less air.

Even the same item, prepared differently will change. A cup of whole hazelnuts will weigh less than a cup of hazelnut meal because of the air between the whole nuts.

Fluid oz and weight oz are different and should not be confused. General rule is weigh solids, measure liquids.

Ready2Rock206

There isn't a conversion. Cups are for liquids. Grams are for solids. When you search broccoli pick the one that has the grams. Helps if you add raw or USDA to the search to find the correct one.

gnerre13

Thanks so much for the replies. I'll go the route of searching for the listing that offers grams. All the info was very helpful. Thanks!