"Why should I use a food scale?"
Replies
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RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »I'd consider fatty foods much more caloric and essential to way out then clean carbs such as rice
And that is how to end up eating way more calories than you think.
I had always been taught to avoid fatty foods such as avocados, so I assumed they were high in calories. Well, 100g of avocado is about 160 kcal (1.6 kcal per g).
100g of dry rice is 365 calories 3.65 kcal per g). Do you weigh out your rice before you cook it? Because going a few grams over on your rice is going to cause a lot more uncounted calories than going a few grams over on your avocado.
And let's not even get started on bread (about 100 kcal per slice). I had fatty tuna-mayo with fatty avocado for lunch yesterday, and yet my calorie count came to less than if I'd had almost anything in a sandwich.
I think that this idea that fatty foods have more calories is the legacy of the 'fat is bad' belief in my parents' generation. It's only since I've been measuring properly and recording on MFP that I've begun to realise that in fact it's always carbs ('clean' or not) that make the calories mount up.
Yeah I laugh at 'carbs don't need to be weighed as much' too. So easy to have 1.5 serving of pasta (or more) instead of 1 if you're not weighing. And yeah... you can easily have 1/2 of your sandwich calories coming from bread!
I got these high fiber tortillas that changed my sandwich life. The smaller ones are 50 calories so I just turn everything that used to be a sandwich into a taco or a burrito. Two slices of bread replaced with a single tortilla!3 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »I'd consider fatty foods much more caloric and essential to way out then clean carbs such as rice
And that is how to end up eating way more calories than you think.
I had always been taught to avoid fatty foods such as avocados, so I assumed they were high in calories. Well, 100g of avocado is about 160 kcal (1.6 kcal per g).
100g of dry rice is 365 calories 3.65 kcal per g). Do you weigh out your rice before you cook it? Because going a few grams over on your rice is going to cause a lot more uncounted calories than going a few grams over on your avocado.
And let's not even get started on bread (about 100 kcal per slice). I had fatty tuna-mayo with fatty avocado for lunch yesterday, and yet my calorie count came to less than if I'd had almost anything in a sandwich.
I think that this idea that fatty foods have more calories is the legacy of the 'fat is bad' belief in my parents' generation. It's only since I've been measuring properly and recording on MFP that I've begun to realise that in fact it's always carbs ('clean' or not) that make the calories mount up.
Yeah I laugh at 'carbs don't need to be weighed as much' too. So easy to have 1.5 serving of pasta (or more) instead of 1 if you're not weighing. And yeah... you can easily have 1/2 of your sandwich calories coming from bread!
I got these high fiber tortillas that changed my sandwich life. The smaller ones are 50 calories so I just turn everything that used to be a sandwich into a taco or a burrito. Two slices of bread replaced with a single tortilla!
Honestly I'm not very much of a sandwich person, I'm more the protein and veggies kind of gal... I typically don't care about the stuff you put in sandwiches... but when I want a sandwich, I want a sandwich
I love the flatout Foldit stuff though - delicious for breakfast sandwiches or egg salad.0 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It's usually 15 grams after it's cooked. The package usually says 2 pan fried slices.
I don't trust bacon packaging at all. First, 'pan fried' really doesn't mean anything because it won't weigh the same if it's crispy or not, then even when it's crispy, it's typically 30% heavier than what it should be for me. So my 2 slices weigh more than the 3 slices one serving is supposed to be, for example. Or 'how to eat 80 extra calories without noticing'.
Or those Lenny & Larry cookies that are often 135g instead of 114g. That's like 70 extra calories or something...
Good for you.1 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »I'd consider fatty foods much more caloric and essential to way out then clean carbs such as rice
And that is how to end up eating way more calories than you think.
I had always been taught to avoid fatty foods such as avocados, so I assumed they were high in calories. Well, 100g of avocado is about 160 kcal (1.6 kcal per g).
100g of dry rice is 365 calories 3.65 kcal per g). Do you weigh out your rice before you cook it? Because going a few grams over on your rice is going to cause a lot more uncounted calories than going a few grams over on your avocado.
And let's not even get started on bread (about 100 kcal per slice). I had fatty tuna-mayo with fatty avocado for lunch yesterday, and yet my calorie count came to less than if I'd had almost anything in a sandwich.
I think that this idea that fatty foods have more calories is the legacy of the 'fat is bad' belief in my parents' generation. It's only since I've been measuring properly and recording on MFP that I've begun to realise that in fact it's always carbs ('clean' or not) that make the calories mount up.
Yeah I laugh at 'carbs don't need to be weighed as much' too. So easy to have 1.5 serving of pasta (or more) instead of 1 if you're not weighing. And yeah... you can easily have 1/2 of your sandwich calories coming from bread!
I got these high fiber tortillas that changed my sandwich life. The smaller ones are 50 calories so I just turn everything that used to be a sandwich into a taco or a burrito. Two slices of bread replaced with a single tortilla!
Honestly I'm not very much of a sandwich person, I'm more the protein and veggies kind of gal... I typically don't care about the stuff you put in sandwiches... but when I want a sandwich, I want a sandwich
I love the flatout Foldit stuff though - delicious for breakfast sandwiches or egg salad.
I put tuna, eggs, left over stuff from dinner (turkey, roast beef, ham, pork roast), grilled chicken breasts, steak, bell peppers, cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, radishes and onions in sandwiches.
Basically I take the protein and the vegetables and I stick them in the tortilla.2 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »I'd consider fatty foods much more caloric and essential to way out then clean carbs such as rice
And that is how to end up eating way more calories than you think.
I had always been taught to avoid fatty foods such as avocados, so I assumed they were high in calories. Well, 100g of avocado is about 160 kcal (1.6 kcal per g).
100g of dry rice is 365 calories 3.65 kcal per g). Do you weigh out your rice before you cook it? Because going a few grams over on your rice is going to cause a lot more uncounted calories than going a few grams over on your avocado.
And let's not even get started on bread (about 100 kcal per slice). I had fatty tuna-mayo with fatty avocado for lunch yesterday, and yet my calorie count came to less than if I'd had almost anything in a sandwich.
I think that this idea that fatty foods have more calories is the legacy of the 'fat is bad' belief in my parents' generation. It's only since I've been measuring properly and recording on MFP that I've begun to realise that in fact it's always carbs ('clean' or not) that make the calories mount up.
Yeah I laugh at 'carbs don't need to be weighed as much' too. So easy to have 1.5 serving of pasta (or more) instead of 1 if you're not weighing. And yeah... you can easily have 1/2 of your sandwich calories coming from bread!
I got these high fiber tortillas that changed my sandwich life. The smaller ones are 50 calories so I just turn everything that used to be a sandwich into a taco or a burrito. Two slices of bread replaced with a single tortilla!
Honestly I'm not very much of a sandwich person, I'm more the protein and veggies kind of gal... I typically don't care about the stuff you put in sandwiches... but when I want a sandwich, I want a sandwich
I love the flatout Foldit stuff though - delicious for breakfast sandwiches or egg salad.
I put tuna, eggs, left over stuff from dinner (turkey, roast beef, ham, pork roast), grilled chicken breasts, steak, bell peppers, cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, radishes and onions in sandwiches.
Basically I take the protein and the vegetables and I stick them in the tortilla.
See, I'd rather save the calories altogether usually and have the stuff without the tortilla/bread, lol.0 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.5 -
Yes. However, my reality is that Id overeat pasta/rice/carbs as opposed to fatty foods.RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
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The "serving" of pasta and garlic bread I used to eat should've fed me for a week! Like covering the entire dinner plate!8
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CynthiasChoice wrote: »When I was transitioning from measuring to weighing, I made the silly mistake of putting the measuring cup on the scale, then zeroing out, and then filling the cup, adjusting, and so forth. And I used a measuring spoon when I weighed my almond butter, which was really hard to scape out! Sigh. So many unnecessary dishes to wash! I had to laugh at myself when I realized I could just use a regular dish and spoon.
Better yet, someone offered this tip: Put the whole container of food on the scale, zero out, take out a serving, then record the resulting negative weight. This has saved me so much time!
And the bonus for the whole container on the scale method is you can lick the spoon since your going to log the calories stuck to it9 -
snowflake954 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.
You know that spoon I'm your kitchen that has a hole through the middle? That's how you're supposed go measure a serving of pasta without a scale.
http://cdn29.elitedaily.com/content/uploads/2016/06/27164439/Spaghetti-Spoon.png5 -
For some foods, it could be up to a 100 calorie difference. So here's how that translates: if someone at just 100 calories OVER their TDEE daily for a year, it can result in a 10lbs gain. Think about it.
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Great post OP! The pics really prove that you must get a scale if you really want to know how many calories you are eating everyday.
This is not an option, its a must IMO.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.
You know that spoon I'm your kitchen that has a hole through the middle? That's how you're supposed go measure a serving of pasta without a scale.
http://cdn29.elitedaily.com/content/uploads/2016/06/27164439/Spaghetti-Spoon.png
Omg seriously? I'm going to test it next time and see how much it weighs 2 -
Omg seriously? I'm going to test it next time and see how much it weighs
I would be super interested in your results! I feel like it would be more accurate than a measuring cup because dried spaghetti is dried spaghetti, but then again, I don't really know how it compares company to company? Feel free to post your pictures here when you test it!
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Wynterbourne wrote: »Yep, pasta is a frequent offender when it comes to getting more calories when using volume instead of weight. I made this picture when the subject came up a while back:
@Wynterbourne I'd never seen the picture you put together, I can see it's helpfulness for members. Cool, thanks
What a difference scale vs. measuring cups make on solids! I used to count out almonds, measure my strawberries by the cup etc. I don't know why... I had a food scale but this was way back in the day and I think I just didn't understand the importance and how liquids only belonged in measuring cups.
So you may be teaching members who have been doing this awhile the importance of the huge difference it makes!
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RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
Unless of course you're diabetic... then it would make a huge difference!5 -
Hearts_2015 wrote: »I don't know why... I had a food scale but this was way back in the day and I think I just didn't understand the importance and how liquids only belonged in measuring cups.
Important to note that liquids belong in liquid measuring cups only, too! I remember about 5 years ago, my aunt was baking and was using solid measuring cups for everything because "a cup is a cup", but they're really not because they're designed to more accurately weigh their respective types of ingredients. Weighing 1 cup of oil in a liquid cup is going to be different than 1 cup of oil in a dry cup. Rest in peace those cookies she was trying to bake.
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yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.2 -
TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...1 -
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cwolfman13 wrote: »
Yes. The longer you cook pasta, the more water it absorbs and the more bulky it becomes. The volume of 1 cup al dente pasta is more than the volume of 1 cup very soft pasta as long as you're not packing it down.2 -
TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
2 -
For reference, I also didn't pack these down. I added 2-3 noodles to each cup at a time because I like watching the number on the scale move
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yellingkimber wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
don't mind him he is in the "don't need a scale" camp.14 -
yellingkimber wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.
You know that spoon I'm your kitchen that has a hole through the middle? That's how you're supposed go measure a serving of pasta without a scale.
http://cdn29.elitedaily.com/content/uploads/2016/06/27164439/Spaghetti-Spoon.png
I live in Italy and make pasta for my family almost everyday--I weigh it. It's accurate.0 -
Wynterbourne wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...
The pasta in your picture looks like it has been cooked. 1 cup of dry pasta makes about 2.25 cups of cooked pasta. So the cup that you are saying is 289 calories is more like 100 calories.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
If it is sticking out above the top of the cup then it doesn't belong there. It looks well rounded to me.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
A calorie is a calorie no matter the source.
Or sauce..... om nom nom. 4 -
TimothyFish wrote: »Wynterbourne wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...
The pasta in your picture looks like it has been cooked. 1 cup of dry pasta makes about 2.25 cups of cooked pasta. So the cup that you are saying is 289 calories is more like 100 calories.
It's dry pasta. Not obvious from the picture, but I remember her posting it somewhere else a while back... and it was dry pasta.3
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