Difficult Foods To Weigh.

HashedBrowns

So for the most part, weighing foods isn't a problem. I do however find some foods to be a problem. In particular, soups, fried foods, and the like.

I can count the weight of everything I put into a soup or stew, including the water. However, when done I find it impossible to figure out the total calories/gram. Water evaporates off. Water content of the vegetables is released and also evaporates. I'm kind of at a loss to figure out what % of my soup/stew is now water, and therefor how many calories are in my bowl.

Fried foods present a similar problem, but with oil uptake instead of outgoing water.

When googling these things, often you get a " It's really hard to tell/nearly impossible. " Was wondering if any of you had found a decent method.

Thanks.

lorrpb

It never occurred to me to worry about how much water is released from vegetables In soup that then evaporates. I can't imagine that evaporated water from the stock is join yo affect the overall cdlories too much, but when building your recipe, just tell it that you are using 20% or do less water than you actually do. That will adjust the total volume. I don't make fries, but if I did, I'd throw in a tablespoon of oil calories per serving.

usmcmp

I'm not sure about fried foods, but for soups I enter all the raw ingredient weights into the recipe tool and divide by how many servings I make out of it. Some of the weight will cook off and some water will evaporate. Very little change will happen to the nutrition between raw and boiling the food.

HashedBrowns

I'm sorry, I may have done poorly at explaining my concern. The calories in the soup/stew stay the same, yes, but the weight, the calorie density, changes.

Example:

You make a soup weighing 100 grams. It has 1cal/gram.
When it is done cooking, the soup weighs 80 grams.

The soup's calorie/gram is now 1.25/gram.

If you weigh your bowl of soup, and enter 1cal for each gram, you are underestimating your calories by 20%.

Aaaaaaand I just answered my own question. I'm an idiot. I apologize. I don't know why I couldn't figure this out. Must have been a brain fart.

rileysowner

Cook the soup, then weigh it warm. At least that is what I do. Enter it as one serving, then figure out what percentage my serving is and enter it as a percent of the total. So if the total is 1000 grams and my service is 200, then I enter .2 of the recipe.

amy_kee

I think you're trying overly hard to be precise with water weights. Yes, weighing food by the gram is a good, accurate way of determining things. But, you don't have to weight everything. You obviously weighed all the raw ingredients. Just do, like suggested above, and figure out what portion of the whole pot you eat for a meal...say,.15% of the whole, and then, just record 15% of the ingredients, or....if some differ by a little bit, come as close as you can to their percentage of the whole.

usmcmp

I make an entire pot of soup and enter the raw ingredients. Water gets ignored. When I am done I split the pot into 5 or 10 servings and log 1/5 or 1/10 of the entire calories in. The recipe builder on here lets you do all of that and even select how many servings it is. If you're only making a single bowl then enter the weight of the raw ingredients. Water is irrelevant.

middlehaitch

Enter all the ingredients in the recipe builder.
Weigh the pot.
Weigh the ingredients going in.
Cook.
Weigh the cooked pot
Subtract the pot weight.
Accurate weight of the meal.
Divide this by 1,10, or 100g for serving multiples.

Same with frying.
Weigh pot.
Measure in oil
Cook food.
Weigh pot
Minus pot weight.
Subtract remaining oil from original measure to give you the amount used.
Divide amount used between servings.

Cheers, h.

stealthq

OP got it - see their 2nd post. Just needed to type out the process to see the missing piece.

brb_2013

I may be wrong, but for soups I have only ever weighed raw ingredients and then split the result equally by weight into however many containers (say I want 4 servings for my work week) and then take the Cals of the whole set of raw ingredients and divide by 4. I try to scoop and match the veggie amounts then add the water on top and then double check that they're all similar.

I usually don't add meats or beans to soup anymore and add them in after so I can weigh those out individually.

LHWhite903

Does one weigh fruit/vegetables with or without their peel when logging?

peaceout_aly

I really need to start weighing my foods - you guys are inspiring me! I'm a slacker when it comes to this.

middlehaitch

@LHWhite903 weigh the portion that is edible and make sure you chose the correct entry.
ie: apple peeled and cored, as opposed to apple.

@peaceout_aly you will probably find you have a more consistent weight loss weighing your food.
It is also good to do it so you can see where there may be errors if you plateau, or when you have to tighten your logging as you get close to goal.

Cheers, h.

callsitlikeiseeit

LHWhite903 wrote: »

Does one weigh fruit/vegetables with or without their peel when logging?

it really would make such in insignificant difference it wouldnt matter LOL

melonaulait

I hate having to think about fruit peels/cores so I often skip that part. Urgh.

middlehaitch

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

LHWhite903 wrote: »

Does one weigh fruit/vegetables with or without their peel when logging?

it really would make such in insignificant difference it wouldnt matter LOL

It rarely matters, but when it gets to the 'tighten up your logging' posts; it does.
It is worth pointing out the correct way for future reference.

Cheers, h.