Weighing Ready Meal Woes

alexreyn13
alexreyn13 Posts: 52 Member
edited December 2024 in Food and Nutrition
So i usually have a ready microwavable meal for lunch (WW, Lean Cuisine etc) and was wondering how I'd go about weighing them? Frozen with the plastic tray, they are usually 20-30 grams heavier than advertised with the tray itself weighing around 15-20 grams.

So should I log these meals frozen with the tray, frozen with the tray weight subtracted or am I overthinking it? They're usually only around 300 calories anyway.

Replies

  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
    Tare off a bowl or other separate container, dump the contents into that, you have your weight.
  • litsy3
    litsy3 Posts: 783 Member
    I think there's no point weighing them as the calorie count given is for the whole meal, which is made up of lots of different components. If the weight happens to be 10g more than advertised, you can't know whether that 10g is made up of equal proportions of all the different ingredients, or whether it's extra water in the sauce, a bit of extra potato (or whatever) so the calorie estimate for a 'typical' meal is probably as accurate as any adjustment you're likely to make.
  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
    edited July 2016
    I agree that sometimes extra weight may not mean many extra calories, such as with a tomato sauce.

    Usually, if it looks full or feels heavy, I weight it frozen, subtract 15 grams for the tray, divide that weight by the stated weight, and enter it as 1.x servings. However, if it looks to me like the weight difference is coming from extra rice, I enter it as 1 serving of the meal and have a separate entry for the grams of extra rice.

    Use your judgement as to whether or not to add calories. It's all estimates anyway.
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