Raw or cooked weights for calculating calories?

Plumpcrazy

Do you normally calculate calories based on the raw weight of ingredients or cooked?
Does it make a difference?

I only ask as yesterday I baked some sweet potato wedges which went in the oven at 245g but came out at 85g which was a much greater weight difference than I would have guessed & now I'm getting myself confused about it.

diannethegeek

I prefer to use the raw weight because I find to to be easier/more accurate for me. But it should be fine as long as you're choosing an accurate entry that specifies raw or cooked.

comptonelizabeth

They lose water when cooked which probably accounts for it. I just posted a similar question!

lemurcat12

Plumpcrazy wrote: »

Do you normally calculate calories based on the raw weight of ingredients or cooked?
Does it make a difference?

I only ask as yesterday I baked some sweet potato wedges which went in the oven at 245g but came out at 85g which was a much greater weight difference than I would have guessed & now I'm getting myself confused about it.

That seems like a really unlikely difference -- I'd expect that you misread the scale on one end or the other.

That said, I normally use raw when possible but as long as you find a cooked entry either is fine.

Plumpcrazy

Thank you. I think what has confused me was I scanned the barcode of the sweet potatos & it was roughly 1 cal per gram....so the "before & after" cals were quite different.

I think I will stick to raw weights....& make sure I read my weighing scales correctly