Why such a difference in calories when "thigh bone-in" in grs vs "thigh meat only" grs?

sasasasa1

Basically, I was making dinner tonight and I have 6 chicken legs (the dark meat with the drumstick). Origionally it had its bone and skin, but according to mfp ( i tried various different ones in the search engine) that would equate to more than 4,000 calories. I was using grams and it didnt seem right to me at all. An hour of deboning and measuring later, it dropped down to a bit more than 2,000 calories - which made MUCH more sense.

My question is - why is there such a discrepancy? Shouldnt the origional legs with "bone in" EQUATE for the fact that there is about 100g of bone in there that people dont eat and subtract it out??

zyxst

There are weird reasons for wrong listings in the database. Look for ones from the USDA or from the package if you have it. I use Self Nutrition Data myself (the USDA is a bit confusing to me) and found this for chicken thighs:

sasasasa1

zyxst wrote: »

There are weird reasons for wrong listings in the database. Look for ones from the USDA or from the package if you have it. I use Self Nutrition Data myself (the USDA is a bit confusing to me) and found this for chicken thighs:

This site is amazing! thankyou!

cwolfman13

Yes to the above...and I'd add that you should tag your database searches with USDA as well for things like this. Many entries are user entered and completely wrong...IMO, people using erroneous database entries without verifying them on their own is a huge reasons for so many "I'm doing everything right but haven't lost any weight" posts...

You can't take the information in the database as gospel...you need to verify it yourself with other reliable sources.

HeidiCooksSupper

I would guess that the biggest factor in the calorie difference is the skin and the fat in it, some of which soaks into the meat as you cook it. People do eat the skin. I love crispy, greasy, lovely chicken skin but it is quite calorie dense.

Francl27

You have to subtract the bone either way. But often MFP will have USDA entries as well, just got to look a bit.

I only weigh chicken drumsticks cooked though, and use the 'chicken dark meat cooked' or 'chicken thigh/leg meat and skin cooked' entries (and subtract the weigh of the bones and/or skin after).