Weighing frozen food

Dove0804

This is a potentially silly question, but after joining MFP I've come to realize how important weighing food is. I couldn't find the answer elsewhere on the boards (I might have overlooked it).

So far I've been religiously using measuring cups and the like, which frankly has been working just fine- likely since I still have so much to lose and I have a larger margin of error. I do know that at some point I'm going to have to start weighing everything if I want to keep losing so consistently, so I'm planning on buying a kitchen scale.

I was wondering the other day as I was taking frozen vegetables out of the freezer- how do you typically weigh out food that is frozen and meant to be heated from its frozen state? I would think the weight would be affected when frozen, so do you usually just cook it first and then weigh it? That sounds kind of messy. Also, in the case of steamed or boiled vegetables they would have taken on water... or do you all just thaw everything first anyway?

Thanks in advance for entertaining my silliness!

Francl27

Typically, if a nutrition label doesn't specify, it's the product weight in its current state. I weigh it frozen, typically. Or cook it and use a usda entry for cooked.

Yeah, it's frustrating for steam in the bag veggie mixes for sure.

capaul42

I weigh my frozen portion before I cook it. Typically any difference in weight isn't going to make a huge difference as most veggies are low calorie to begin with.

The things you really need to be careful with are prepackaged foods (like bars, cookies, bread, and the like) as the weight can vary greatly from serving size listed. And those differences can wipe out a deficit very quickly if you aren't careful.