Whole chicken - help?

clicketykeys

So my husband is cooking a whole chicken in the pressure cooker for tonight's dinner. Well, we're not going to eat the whole thing tonight. What is the best way to log what I do eat accurately? And the rest of it will be frozen to use in other dishes later. This is something I struggle with regularly: using leftovers as ingredients.

Hamsibian

Weigh the chicken raw, log it into recipe builder, then weigh it again after it's cooked. The latter in grams should be how many servings it provides. (I.e. if it weighs 1000 grams after is it cooked, then it's 1000 servings).

Then Weigh what you eat minus the bones. Tada!

livingleanlivingclean

I would pull the meat off the bone and weigh it, then use an entry for cooked chicken (breast or thigh, whichever you eat)

Same for leftovers - portion them out and write the weight on the bag/container

lemurcat12

Simpler, and what I do (I had whole chicken a lot when I was losing).

Pull (or cut) what you want to eat off the bone and log based on the part of chicken it was from (with skin, since it was cooked with skin, and plus then you get to have some skin). I'd (for example) take some breast and some leg and weigh and log each separately. If, instead, you want to not pull meat off a leg before eating it, you can take some breast meat and a leg or wing and then weigh the bone after, but unless it's a formal meal I always just do the work of pulling off the meat I want to eat in advance.

Use the USDA entry for cooked.

NewMeSM75

I don't see how to log it accurately. White meat and dark meat differ in calories. Whether you eat the skin or not matters. I normally will log what part of the chicken I'm eating if possible such as drum stick or breast. I weigh it and log it as cooked.

iamthemotherofdogs

Please don't bog yourself down in getting it accurate down to the calorie. Weigh it, portion it how you see fit, and make an educated estimate. If you feel like you're not logging enough, take the estimate you come up with and add 50 calories. The fact that you're so concerned about it is awesome, because it shows that you're working hard to track and I'm proud of you. Chicken is a great lean, high-protein food either way. Don't forget to save the bones for making bone broth if that's something you're into Soup season is upon us.

lemurcat12

I will add that I find it super simple to work with the leftovers from a whole chicken. Just don't be afraid to weigh it cooked (using the USDA cooked entry), and it's plenty accurate (not perfect, but nothing is). Making a salad and adding on some cooked chicken (it's easy to see if it's white or dark, and I might log wing meat as leg, who cares, although I do always split up breast and leg as my white and dark categories) is really easy, and weighing the chicken you cut off to use on the salad (or add to a stew or whatever) is just as easy.

Roasting whole chickens (or bone in chicken parts) for use later is one of my big "make life easier" things. (I also crockpot turkey wings and legs for similar use later and other cuts of meat.) People are too anti using the USDA cooked entries, IMO -- if you specify cooking method they are fine.

clicketykeys

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the help

Lounmoun

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I would pull the meat off the bone and weigh it, then use an entry for cooked chicken (breast or thigh, whichever you eat)

Same for leftovers - portion them out and write the weight on the bag/container

This is how I would handle it. Just weigh out a portion of cooked chicken and log with a cooked chicken entry.
If you are mixing light and dark meat I would choose a chicken thigh meat entry for all of it.

At Thanksgiving you aren't going to log a whole raw turkey are you?

clicketykeys

Lounmoun wrote: »

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I would pull the meat off the bone and weigh it, then use an entry for cooked chicken (breast or thigh, whichever you eat)

Same for leftovers - portion them out and write the weight on the bag/container

This is how I would handle it. Just weigh out a portion of cooked chicken and log with a cooked chicken entry.
If you are mixing light and dark meat I would choose a chicken thigh meat entry for all of it.

At Thanksgiving you aren't going to log a whole raw turkey are you?

At Thanksgiving... I'm going to pray for willpower. ;D

OhMsDiva

clicketykeys wrote: »

Lounmoun wrote: »

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I would pull the meat off the bone and weigh it, then use an entry for cooked chicken (breast or thigh, whichever you eat)

Same for leftovers - portion them out and write the weight on the bag/container

This is how I would handle it. Just weigh out a portion of cooked chicken and log with a cooked chicken entry.
If you are mixing light and dark meat I would choose a chicken thigh meat entry for all of it.

At Thanksgiving you aren't going to log a whole raw turkey are you?

At Thanksgiving... I'm going to pray for willpower. ;D

At Thanksgiving I will not logging or weighing anything.

azironasun

If you want accuracy, weigh the cooked pieces you think you're going to eat. After eating, weigh the bones, skin and half-eaten pieces that are left. Subtract the ending weight from the starting weight.

clicketykeys

azironasun wrote: »

If you want accuracy, weigh the cooked pieces you think you're going to eat. After eating, weigh the bones, skin and half-eaten pieces that are left. Subtract the ending weight from the starting weight.

That's what I ended up doing. I'd just always heard that you're supposed to use precooked weight for meats.

azironasun

clicketykeys wrote: »

That's what I ended up doing. I'd just always heard that you're supposed to use precooked weight for meats.

That's the beauty of MFP. You can find the nutritional value of either cooked or uncooked meat, and track accordingly.

lemurcat12

clicketykeys wrote: »

azironasun wrote: »

If you want accuracy, weigh the cooked pieces you think you're going to eat. After eating, weigh the bones, skin and half-eaten pieces that are left. Subtract the ending weight from the starting weight.

That's what I ended up doing. I'd just always heard that you're supposed to use precooked weight for meats.

For something where cooking time varies a lot, it's a little more accurate (a steak will be smaller but not necessarily have fewer calories if cooked well done vs. rare). Mostly I think cooked entries are fine, especially for something like chicken where it's normally cooked to a pretty consistent doneness.

I use cooked entries a lot for meat since I eat a lot of bone-in cuts.

clicketykeys

lemurcat12 wrote: »

clicketykeys wrote: »

azironasun wrote: »

If you want accuracy, weigh the cooked pieces you think you're going to eat. After eating, weigh the bones, skin and half-eaten pieces that are left. Subtract the ending weight from the starting weight.

That's what I ended up doing. I'd just always heard that you're supposed to use precooked weight for meats.

For something where cooking time varies a lot, it's a little more accurate (a steak will be smaller but not necessarily have fewer calories if cooked well done vs. rare). Mostly I think cooked entries are fine, especially for something like chicken where it's normally cooked to a pretty consistent doneness.

I use cooked entries a lot for meat since I eat a lot of bone-in cuts.

HERESY.

MelanieCN77

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I would pull the meat off the bone and weigh it, then use an entry for cooked chicken (breast or thigh, whichever you eat)

Same for leftovers - portion them out and write the weight on the bag/container

I do this. If it's bone in I weigh it and jot it down, then weigh what's left after I'm done to get what I ate.

lemurcat12

clicketykeys wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

clicketykeys wrote: »

azironasun wrote: »

If you want accuracy, weigh the cooked pieces you think you're going to eat. After eating, weigh the bones, skin and half-eaten pieces that are left. Subtract the ending weight from the starting weight.

That's what I ended up doing. I'd just always heard that you're supposed to use precooked weight for meats.

For something where cooking time varies a lot, it's a little more accurate (a steak will be smaller but not necessarily have fewer calories if cooked well done vs. rare). Mostly I think cooked entries are fine, especially for something like chicken where it's normally cooked to a pretty consistent doneness.

I use cooked entries a lot for meat since I eat a lot of bone-in cuts.

HERESY.

Oh, I totally agree, but some people do it!