How to weigh food when eating with family?

mburgess458

I see many on this board stating that they precisely weigh every single bite that goes into their mouth. How on earth do you do this if you prepare and eat meals with a family? For example, you are cooking a dish that includes ground beef or ground turkey and a bunch of veggies and other things. You know the exact weight of the raw meat and all of the other ingredients. Then you sit down with your family and put some of the cooked meal on your plate. How do you know how much of the meat you ate? You could weigh the amount you put on your plate but that is post-cooking and includes all of the other ingredients. Do you weigh the ingredients pre-cooking, then weigh the total finished product after cooking, and then weigh your portion so that you know you ate 27% of the total?

I'm not trying to say that everyone needs to be super precise, but it sounds like some of you are. Just curious how you are.

Francl27

I weigh everything precooking, and enter them in the recipe tool here, then weigh the whole thing post cooking and enter the number of grams as the amount of servings... then I just weigh my portion. Sure, it won't be totally accurate as I might be getting less meat and more veggies etc, but it's the best I can do.

When it's easy to separate, I just weigh things separately (I made some crockpot dish with saurkraut, kielbasa and potatoes, and it was easy to just pick one thing at a time).

StaciMarie1974

We have never been the family to put all the cooked items on the table - except for special occasion meals at my in-laws. So I generally build my plate in the kitchen, easy access to a food scale.

For one pot meals (chili, for example) I'd weigh individual ingredients and create a recipe. I'd weigh the final product - say its 2255 grams. I'd make the recipe for 2255 servings of 1g each, and then log how much I have.

For meat I try to weigh precooked in most situations, but if post-cooked is the only real option, then I'm careful to use a post-cooked entry that matches as close as possible to what I've done.

Fat4Fuel2

If possible, I'll use a separate pan for my food. That way I weight out my food, which is the same as the family, but it's cooked separately so I keep track of it.

moose_mama

Francl27 wrote: »

I weigh everything precooking, and enter them in the recipe tool here, then weigh the whole thing post cooking and enter the number of grams as the amount of servings... then I just weigh my portion. Sure, it won't be totally accurate as I might be getting less meat and more veggies etc, but it's the best I can do.

When it's easy to separate, I just weigh things separately (I made some crockpot dish with saurkraut, kielbasa and potatoes, and it was easy to just pick one thing at a time).

This.

AskTracyAnnK28

Fat4Fuel2 wrote: »

If possible, I'll use a separate pan for my food. That way I weight out my food, which is the same as the family, but it's cooked separately so I keep track of it.

This is what I do, too

2snakeswoman

I find the recipe function to be a huge hassle and am seldom motivated to go through all the steps of using it. We usually fill our own plates in the kitchen, and with some dishes it's pretty easy to weigh/measure each thing separately. For other things, like the noodle casseroles my husband likes to make, I ascertain what's in it, then find something in the database that seems pretty close and use that. For example, my husband made something that looked and tasted a lot like beef stroganoff last weekend, so I used a homemade beef stroganoff from the database. I figure I'm at least in the ballpark if not on base. If I'm not totally off the rails from something stressful, I usually leave a couple hundred calories unclaimed just in case I've under-estimated something.

ButterSideDown

This is difficult for sure. For dinners that don't have individual items, so say a soup or lasagna, what I do is a bit of work, but it works for me. I use the create a recipe function on here, then weigh and add in every ingredient to get it as exact as I can.

Then the guessing part. I have to eyeball how many portions I think dinner will be, say 4, then use that in the recipe as the number of servings.

When dinner is ready to be served, I dish out 1/4 of the whole thing, and add that to my diary. Since it's not exact as weighing the final dinner, I try to give myself slightly less then what I think 1/4 is, to make sure my calories aren't way out.

It's much easier if I just stick to dinner with separate items, such as chicken breasts and a side of veggies. Then I can weigh "my chicken" and know exactly what it is, and make sure I put it on my plate first before letting everyone else dig in. Good luck

callsitlikeiseeit

StaciMarie1974 wrote: »

We have never been the family to put all the cooked items on the table - except for special occasion meals at my in-laws. So I generally build my plate in the kitchen, easy access to a food scale.

thats what i do. if its a one dish meal, ill enter it in the recipe builder thing and figure out how many servings it is.

mburgess458

Sounds like I do what a lot of you do. It has been working for me so far. I was curious what those of you who are a little more precise do, and it sounds like some do go through a lot to be accurate.

kenmiller75

It's really not a lot of work and if you make certain dishes on a regular basis, this tool is very helpful. The main reason I use the recipe tool is because of the ability to edit my recipe when I make a dish again.

If I make pasta and use 200 grams of onion the first time and only 150 grams the second time, it's quick and easy to adjust the ingredient amount. I can also add mushrooms or subtract tomatoes if I need to or swap out one type of pasta for another. My serving size is 100 grams with the total number based on the weight of the dish but I like everyone's suggestion on making the number of servings the total weight in grams and I think that's what I'll do from here on out.

JoRumbles

I just guess I add the recipe, add number of servings- usually I put 3 as it is two adults and 2 children, then just serve myself a "small" third of the dish. I don't worry if the calories are slightly over as I am on 1,200 cals a day and not that bothered if I get between 1,200 and 1,500 as I will still lose in that range.

ryanhorn

My opinion:
Life's too short to weigh in situations like this. Enjoy the meal with your family and take your best guess.

mburgess458

ryanhorn wrote: »

My opinion:
Life's too short to weigh in situations like this. Enjoy the meal with your family and take your best guess.

I wasn't talking about the odd meal with the family. I'm talking about every dinner every day....and that's often people's largest meal of the day so it's easy to get into trouble with your best guess.

Phrick

moose_mama wrote: »

Francl27 wrote: »

I weigh everything precooking, and enter them in the recipe tool here, then weigh the whole thing post cooking and enter the number of grams as the amount of servings... then I just weigh my portion. Sure, it won't be totally accurate as I might be getting less meat and more veggies etc, but it's the best I can do.

When it's easy to separate, I just weigh things separately (I made some crockpot dish with saurkraut, kielbasa and potatoes, and it was easy to just pick one thing at a time).

This.

This for me, too. I find it to be pretty darn easy; I thought it would be more time consuming and difficult but it really hasn't been.

cwolfman13

I weigh things out as I go and put them in the recipe builder. Then I figure out how many servings it is and try to estimate as close as I can how many servings I'm having.

I have quite a bit in the database, but many of my meals are also not casseroles or stews or whatever...very often I'm just grilling something up and having a side of veg and a side of some kind of starch so that's pretty easy...and those are our more common meals in my household.