Measure food cooked or raw

wendypark811

Hello,

I have been measuring my food items cooked but yesterday my Trainer told me on mfp it is raw food. Which is right?

Thanks

tiptoethruthetulips

I do raw...it's usually more reliable, eg rice and pasta consume water, meat and poultry lose fluid on grilling or baking.

Wynterbourne

If it's something I have control over, home vs a restaurant or a friend's house, I always always weigh it raw. Too many variables for cooked food due to the various cooking methods.

pebble4321

You can do either. Look for database entries for
- rice white raw
or
- rice white cooked
for example.

Ready2Rock206

Raw is more accurate - but whichever you use be sure to use the correct entry in MFP (cooked or raw)

Spliner1969

Raw typically, but honestly you can do either. The thing is that logging is only as accurate as you are when entering it. When you enter something don't choose from the list of possibilities simply because one is lower calorie than the other, that's pretty much self sabotage. Look for entries that seem accurate or that have been verified. Here's an example, I typically bake cauliflower for a side with olive oil and salt+pepper, I weigh it before and after a lot of times, the weight changes, because it's the water content that goes away when baking it. Water has no calories, but eating more of it by weighing after it's cooked can give you inaccurate calories. But.. again, it's cauliflower. I enter it in a recipe in my phone (because of the oil being high calorie), and as long as I'm logging the oil separately or as part of the serving (usually 1 tbsp) cauliflower is so low calorie I don't care. Lean meats.. not such a big deal, but fatty meats are a big deal because the fat will cook away and change the weight more. Whichever you choose to do is fine, cooked or raw, but be consistent, and watch your goals. If you're not losing weight maybe you should change to raw. If you are losing as expected then I wouldn't worry about it. I will weigh boneless/skinless chicken breast after its cooked, but that's just me being lazy. Some things are so low in calories that it isn't a huge deal to me. Consistency is key.