Weighing meat

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diane135130
diane135130 Posts: 27 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
To track the correct nutrients I'm eating, should I weight my meat before or after cooking? Does the chart incorporate the changes in weight when calculating nutritional values for the correct cooked total or how do we account for the difference?

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  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
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    Pick the relevant database entry.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    diane135130 wrote: »
    To track the correct nutrients I'm eating, should I weight my meat before or after cooking? Does the chart incorporate the changes in weight when calculating nutritional values for the correct cooked total or how do we account for the difference?

    Always weigh it raw. If it is a steak or chop, trim any fat you will not be eating before weighing and cooking. If it has a bone, weigh the bone after and subtract that from the total.

    The exception to this is things like bone-in hams, whole turkeys and chickens, etc. You will have to weigh the portion you eat after it has been cooked. Just make sure you are using the correct database entry like "turkey - white meat, roasted"
  • happyauntie2015
    happyauntie2015 Posts: 282 Member
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    Raw
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,996 Member
    edited April 2017
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    cityruss wrote: »
    Pick the relevant database entry.

    To flesh this out a bit, the USDA database has counts for meat in both raw and cooked form. And as you can see for 'chicken breast', several forms of cooking, as well as with or without skin. I always get the correct syntax for meat from the USDA database and then plug it into the MFP database. Many entries in MFP were created by users, and prone to errors (even if they have the green checks).

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    If it's just me eating the meat, I weigh it raw. If I'm sharing, I weigh it cooked, and don't worry that this is marginally less accurate.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    As long as you use the correct entry from the USDA (cooked with method vs. raw), it doesn't matter. I do a lot of bone-in meats, and so have to weigh them cooked. It also may be easier to weigh cooked sometimes if you don't have your portion set until after it is cooked (cooking a whole fish and sharing with the family, for example).
  • medic2038
    medic2038 Posts: 434 Member
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    Generally what I do (since I usually cook meat in bulk) is take the total amount I'm eating, and multiply that by 1.5.

    So basically if I'm eating 8oz of meat, I log it as 12.

    I found this a while ago, and found it to be very helpful!

    http://www.ontheregimen.com/2013/08/28/how-to-weigh-meat-cooked-or-raw/
  • inertiastrength
    inertiastrength Posts: 2,343 Member
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    Raw. The only time I weigh it cooked is if I'm having a roast or a piece of meat that I can't cut prior to cooking. It's more accurate to weigh raw because depending on how much or how little you cook a piece of meat the water content will differ

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