Effect of cooking on calorific value

kal900

Hi,
Well, now Im confused. I hated doing calorie counting when I was younger and low carb had a positive effect on my weight loss... but as I get older I find things dont work so well.
I've been calorie counting again since a friend encouraged me to do one of her weekly chaalenges, and lost 3 lbs!
But.. after a 3 month plateau Ive started looking into it again.
I weigh everything as I prepare it.. then throw it in the wok or oven. So I record the raw value. Ive now seen , epsecailly for meat, that cooking can increase calorific value by up to 50% !! Is this true? How can you find out what cooked values are? It is so hard to weigh items once they are cooked because I generally stirfry altogether. What does everyone else do?
Although I am back to losing weight, I'm expecting that Im having way over my calorie allowance because Im eating cooked food, but recording raw, can anyone confirm this?
I have now started working on a 2 day rotation of veg with meat, veg with pulses and just veg. The 7th day is variable depending on our mood and whereabouts. Hopefully this might lessen the high meat calories, but I doubt it will still be accurate
Why does losing weight have to be so awful??

DaddieCat

Cooking by itself won't add calories unless you are cooking in oil, marinade, or some other caloric sauce/medium.

I weigh raw and use that to determine my portions.

If I can't weight raw, I use cooked entries and weight cooked.

If I'm making a large item to be split, I weigh the total of the end result and divide that by number of servings. For example, I make 750 grams of stir fry in total, I want 4 servings, each serving must then be 187.5 grams.

It sounds like the entries that you are choosing might not be accurate and you might need to either choose different entries or add your own for the items you are preparing.

But, I've found that logging raw weight and determining my portions raw (pre-cooking) has been the most accurate for me in regards to logging and the projected losses or gains.

*edited to add:

Keep in mind that meat and many other items will lose weight when cooking, so a logged portion of cooked meat can weigh less but be more calories than a raw portion. For example, you buy an 8oz steak, which after cooking ends up closer to 6.5oz. If you logged a cooked portion of 8oz, you'd really be logging something closer to 10oz raw to account for liquid loss, rendered fat, etc.

MissusMoon

Cooking oil has a lot of calories. It's not going to double calories in meat, though. Meat isn't going to hold a lot of oil, but veggies will pick up a lot more. I log that as best I can. If a tablespoon of oil goes into the pan, I account for that in my diary. Same with cooking spray.

Your rotation is a bit complicated for me, and if you're finding it over-complicated, how about you just try to focus on the calories? I try for good nutrition and hitting my macro goals, but it's not requiring that much effort.

Edited to add....cooking food in general does not add calories. Sometimes it changes the size of things or the form.

ASKyle

Weigh and record everything raw.

Things lose moisture (water) when they cook. Water has no calories.

Example: your 6oz piece of meat with 200 calories, loses 1oz of water. Now it is a 5oz piece of meat that still has 200 calories.

Ready2Rock206

Don't make things more complicated than they need to be. Weigh and record the raw weights.

ASKyle

Also want to add- Don't weigh it again after you cook. Just weigh raw, log raw, and leave it alone.

chunky_pinup

amyrebeccah wrote: »

I think OP is confused, looking at a stat of (for example) 4 oz raw chicken and comparing it to 4 oz cooked chicken. Of course the calories for 4 oz cooked chicken will be greater, but that's not because cooking increased calorie content. It's because water released during cooking means that it's more like 6oz raw chicken becomes 4 oz cooked. Does that make sense OP?

^^^This. The calories don't evaporate when cooking, but the food you cook becomes more "dense" as the water evaporates. It's easiest (and more accurate, IMO) to weigh raw.

earlnabby

amyrebeccah wrote: »

I think OP is confused, looking at a stat of (for example) 4 oz raw chicken and comparing it to 4 oz cooked chicken. Of course the calories for 4 oz cooked chicken will be greater, but that's not because cooking increased calorie content. It's because water released during cooking means that it's more like 6oz raw chicken becomes 4 oz cooked. Does that make sense OP?

On the other hand, things like pasta "lose" calories when cooked. 4 oz of dried pasta will have more calories than 4 oz cooked pasta because the pasta absorbs water and gains weight (so to speak). Same thing with rice. Another reason to weigh foods raw, dried, etc.

cwolfman13

kal900 wrote: »

Hi,
Well, now Im confused. I hated doing calorie counting when I was younger and low carb had a positive effect on my weight loss... but as I get older I find things dont work so well.
I've been calorie counting again since a friend encouraged me to do one of her weekly chaalenges, and lost 3 lbs!
But.. after a 3 month plateau Ive started looking into it again.
I weigh everything as I prepare it.. then throw it in the wok or oven. So I record the raw value. Ive now seen , epsecailly for meat, that cooking can increase calorific value by up to 50% !! Is this true? How can you find out what cooked values are? It is so hard to weigh items once they are cooked because I generally stirfry altogether. What does everyone else do?
Although I am back to losing weight, I'm expecting that Im having way over my calorie allowance because Im eating cooked food, but recording raw, can anyone confirm this?
I have now started working on a 2 day rotation of veg with meat, veg with pulses and just veg. The 7th day is variable depending on our mood and whereabouts. Hopefully this might lessen the high meat calories, but I doubt it will still be accurate
Why does losing weight have to be so awful??

No...that's not true...at least in the sense that the cooking itself is changing the calories. If you're comparing 4 ounces of raw beef vs 4 ounces of cooked beef, the calories are going to be more in 4 ounces of cooked because when you cook it, you're cooking off water...so it's probably closer to something like 6 ounces raw.

sympha01

Most raw foods have more water in them than cooked foods. A chicken breast that weighs 6 oz before being cooked loses water and weight (but not calories) while being cooked, so it has a similar number of calories to a much lighter piece of cooked meat. It /becomes/ a much lighter piece of cooked meat -- it doesn't get more calories.

If you weigh your food raw, use a raw weight entry to log that food.

If you weigh your food cooked, use an appropriate cooked weight database entry to log it. It will not be quite as accurate as weighing raw and using a raw weight entry, but one person might cook their food less and leave more water in it and another person might cook the kitten out of it and dry it out, but for some people weighing raw just doesn't work with their workflow, and I respect that.

eta: with the exception of foods that become "waterlogged" when you cook them, for instance rice or pasta get /heavier/ when you cook them because they take on water in the cooking process. Der.