caloric content of wings (check my math)

mishkins3

I couldn't find the info I needed so I had to figure it out myself..

There is a package of 52 large wings from costco with both bone and skin included weighing 2.126Kg

2126g/52 pieces = 40.9g each

It says 190 calories 13g fat, 18g carbs per 100g.

That definitely includes the skin with that fat rating but it's unclear weather it includes the bone at 1.9 cal/g. Sometimes it does include the bone and sometimes not, sometimes it says (edibles) on the label clearing that up, this didn't.

I assume the bones are included in the serving size. If not then the calories of 1 wing goes from 50.7 to only 30.7 calories as you will see below. Also from below the skin must be >4.5 cal/g which should bring the basic 1.65 of roast chicken breast up quite a bit, the inclusion of the bones brings it back down to barely above roast chicken at 1.9 cal/g.

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First thing is that the wings were barbecued with the skin on. This means it is sorta fried in the fat of the skin so the cal/g should be higher than the 1.65 cal/g of skinless boneless chicken breast.

I separated the cooked meat of a wing and drumette from the skin and bones. Then I weighed them and averaged the cooked weight of bone and the skin. There was 10g of bone and 6 gram of cooked skin in a raw wing of 41g,

I found on a competing website that the caloric information for a whole chicken's cooked skin or at least a serving of it is 154 calories and 34 grams. Therefor we will assume cooked skin is 4.5 cal/g.

(total calories of wing with skin) - (calories of skin) = calories/wing

(40.9g * 1.9 cal/g) - (6g * 4.5 cal/g) = 50.7 calories

The above is really simple but it hurt my head coming up with it.

The cooked weight of 1 wing and 1 drumette averaged is: 57g/2 = 28.5g

Density = 50.7 calories / 28.5g = 1.8 cal/g

A not important fact:
40.9g raw wing - 28.5g cooked wing = 12.4g loss of water and some fat

hazleyes81

The bag doesn't say how many servings it is? That should help you figure it out. Wings are tough even when labeled per wing, as some seen to count both wing parts and some only one. So it's hard to even get info to compare.

For comparison, the wings in my freezer say 220 Cal's per 112g, 7 servings (totaling 784g) in a 1.13kg bag. To me that means it does not include bones as I would not expect them to shrink almost in half from cooking.

When I eat them, I weigh my serving and then subtract what's left on my plate (bones, tendons) and that's what I log.

mishkins3

damn it actually does say edible portion right on it... now i look stupid

so

([40.9g -10g] * 1.9 cal/g) - (6g * 4.5 cal/g) = 30.7 calories

30.7/28.5= 1.08

i know some deli chicken is as low as 1 cal/g cooked, but does 1.1 make sense for wings... they seemed fatty like coated I mean with the fat from the skin that cooked out.

mishkins3

i got found another entry on another site with chicken skin cook at 3.49 cal/g ... i hate conflicting data

([40.9g -10g] * 1.9 cal/g) - (6g * 3.5 cal/g)

37 is more believable

mishkins3

You could estimate by weighing only the skin after cooking with the above, (0.75)*(1 wing weight)*(provided cal/g)-(3.5*skin weight)

the ratio of bone to meat+skin is probably fairly scale-able

sorry for posting 4 of 5 in a row


think i figured this out now

PearBlossom9

hazleyes81 wrote: »

When I eat them, I weigh my serving and then subtract what's left on my plate (bones, tendons) and that's what I log.

I have no idea why I didn't think of this, lol. I weighed the meat off of 3 wings to give myself an average. This is far better.