Question about Weighing Prepackaged Foods

MommaGem2017
MommaGem2017 Posts: 405 Member
in Food and Nutrition
This may be a strange question, but here is the situation. I'm trying to be diligent about weighing all of the food I eat. Like, everything. I started weighing prepackaged frozen meals.

Today I had the Lean Cuisine Spaghetti and Meat sauce. 1 package (328g) = 310 kcal

I place the cooked package on the scale. I was planning on weighing the whole thing, then scoop out the spaghetti and weigh the plastic container. But the entire thing, with the plastic container = 324g. After I ate it, the container itself weighed 17g, so the actual food itself weighed 307g.

This happened the day before with a premade (not frozen) meal and the same thing happened. It weighed what it should have weighed.... with the container.

So, my question is... is this normal? Is the weight listed on a premade frozen meal supposed to also include the container weight?? Or should I be logging 307g of this spaghetti instead of the full 328g??

Replies

  • jordandills
    jordandills Posts: 103 Member
    If it's the weight listed on the nutrition label, it wouldn't include the container. Manufacturers have some room for variability in their packaged goods, so as long as all the meals they create even out to 328g, they're fine. Some may be 307g, some may be 347g. You just seem to have gotten two lighter ones in a row.
  • MommaGem2017
    MommaGem2017 Posts: 405 Member
    Ahh, thank you. That is what I figured, but I wanted to ask before I made assumptions and potentially logged something incorrectly. Must have been a strange coincidence that both of them weighed almost spot on in their containers :)
  • Mouse_Potato
    Mouse_Potato Posts: 1,510 Member
    I have run in to this as well. Pretty much every frozen dinner I have weighed has been very close to what the package is labeled, with the container.
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
    I wonder how much water cooks off when it's heated. I'm thinking the weight per serving is probably for the meal when frozen.
  • MommaGem2017
    MommaGem2017 Posts: 405 Member
    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    I wonder how much water cooks off when it's heated. I'm thinking the weight per serving is probably for the meal when frozen.

    Good thought, I will try that experiment next!
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »
    I wonder how much water cooks off when it's heated. I'm thinking the weight per serving is probably for the meal when frozen.

    That's, my thought, as well.

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