Food mathematics: removal of water and fat from meat. How to log?

yirara

Here's something for the food mathematics...

I bought 207gr 20% fat beef mince that comes in at 491 kcal.
I make little mince balls and roast them in the oven.
After roasting I put them back on the scale and they are 123gr.
I mop up the fat from the tray, let the paper towel dry and the actual fat weighs 30gr. Thus 14.5% fat was removed from roasting.
Thus 54gr of water was in this mince, which actually is quite shocking!

I know I can add negative calories to my diary. I found a good entry for negative fat. But how would you log this mince? Or does the calorie information on the packaging include the inflated weight for the water already?

cmriverside

I weigh meat raw, use the USDA "raw" calculation and move on.

I used to get really into the minute details but thankfully it isn't necessary.

I still lost weight and have kept it off even though it isn't a perfect process.

yirara

I know its not necessary. But I am super confused by this....

ah, I finally found the USDA database entry. It's beef, ground not beef, mince. And it does contain water in the ingredients list. Phew. ok. Right. so that fits. I thus kept the protein but removed the fat. Btw, not because I'd planned to do that. I was just following a recipe, and seeing all the fluid in the tray got the thinking.

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/7616?fgcd=&manu=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=50&offset=&sort=default&order=asc&qlookup=beef+ground,+80%&ds=&qt=&qp=&qa=&qn=&q=&ing=

cmriverside

They aren't adding water to it...all animal tissue contains water and heating causes it to be released. Some of it remains in the pan and some is evaporated off.

yirara

True. However, I've lived in countries before where putting mince in a pan resulted in the mince being boiled because so much water came out. So yes, in some places water does get added, massively.

Unknown

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yirara

JerSchmare wrote: »

This is a solid example of overthinking things.

Yep. Guilty as charged. I didn't even get 'woo' for this

Munchberry

If the meatballs are just comprised of meat, you can weigh the balls and use a "broiled ground beef (or whatever meat), nutrition information.

lynn_glenmont

cmriverside wrote: »

They aren't adding water to it...all animal tissue contains water and heating causes it to be released. Some of it remains in the pan and some is evaporated off.

^^This.
A solid piece of cow muscle, cut off the carcass into a retail cut, trimmed to minimal amounts of fat, with nothing else done to it, is going to be 65% to 70% water by weight.

CyberTone

I will log ground beef as either raw or cooked, depending on how I use it. There are existing records in the Food Database that MFP imported from the USDA many years ago. It just takes the right syntax to find them.

When I use very lean ground beef, such as 90% lean in a recipe for chili, I usually do not drain any juices from the pot, so I will log the weight of the ground beef as raw in the recipe.

Search for "beef ground lean meat raw." There are a couple entries, I use the ones for 85% and 90%.



When I use less lean ground beef, such as 80% or lower, I will cook the ground meat separately, drain the juices (fat plus water), weigh the cooked meat, and log the ground beef as cooked in the recipe or directly in my Food Diary.

Search for "beef ground lean meat fat cooked baked," "beef ground lean meat fat cooked broiled," "beef ground lean meat fat cooked pan." Add modifiers to the search string, such as "loaf," "patty," and "crumbles" to bring up specific items.

I have collected many of the ground beef records I have found and verified in the Food Database in my sixth meal slot in my Diary, which I have named "Recipe Testing," The quantities are set to 0.0001 so that they do not add Calories to my Diary, but they will appear in my Recent list query and I can draw from those when I draft a recipe.

My Diary is public. If you want to use quick tools to copy that meal slot, make sure you have given your sixth meal slot a name (create meal slot names on the web version if you do not have a sixth meal slot yet) or it won't transfer the records.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/CyberTone?date=2018-01-09

rybo

yirara wrote: »

True. However, I've lived in countries before where putting mince in a pan resulted in the mince being boiled because so much water came out. So yes, in some places water does get added, massively.

No, meat contains water, depending on how much the meat was aged or dried could affect how much water is left. Also cooking with the lid on or off changes how much evaporates. I process my own wild game and when cooking ground meat(with very little to no fat) with a lid on the pan, I pour off so much water.

yirara

rybo wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

True. However, I've lived in countries before where putting mince in a pan resulted in the mince being boiled because so much water came out. So yes, in some places water does get added, massively.

No, meat contains water, depending on how much the meat was aged or dried could affect how much water is left. Also cooking with the lid on or off changes how much evaporates. I process my own wild game and when cooking ground meat(with very little to no fat) with a lid on the pan, I pour off so much water.

Oh, it does. Some producers inject some kind of water jelly into meat so in the end you spend your nice cash for less meat than you actually paid for. If you cook it you'll notice because suddenly there's water in your pan next to the cooking oil I've experienced this extremely in the Netherlands, but it also happens in Germany. Have not seen it in Denmark, Norway or the UK (yes, I move around )

jgnatca

As an aside, it's the lower water content that protects McDonald's burgers from rot.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/heres-why-mcdonalds-burgers-don-t-rot/

yirara

Interesting.

Another interesting thing discovered today: my meatballs baked in the oven with quite some fat removed do taste somewhat dry of course, but very game-y. Interesting as well. I like that strong taste.