You don't use a food scale?

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  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    Bumpity
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
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  • allieeveryday
    allieeveryday Posts: 85 Member
    I've only had my food scale for a couple of weeks, and I have some questions re: weighing for portion sizes. I tend to make big pots of food for dinner, then box the leftovers up in tupperware for lunches over the next few days. What I've been doing is weighing the pot (so I know weight to subtract later), tare-ing, adding each ingredient individually, writing down the weight and tare-ing between each ingredient. It sounds like that's consistent with what ya'll are doing.

    So if I'm doing a recipe, and it says "8 servings," do I just divide the total weight by 8 and that's the portion size? This is what I did last night for dinner and then weighed out the leftover portions too. Though it weighed different amounts uncooked vs. cooked - which weight is the correct one? How do you determine how many portions if you're improvising a recipe? Am I totally overthinking this?
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    I've only had my food scale for a couple of weeks, and I have some questions re: weighing for portion sizes. I tend to make big pots of food for dinner, then box the leftovers up in tupperware for lunches over the next few days. What I've been doing is weighing the pot (so I know weight to subtract later), tare-ing, adding each ingredient individually, writing down the weight and tare-ing between each ingredient. It sounds like that's consistent with what ya'll are doing.

    So if I'm doing a recipe, and it says "8 servings," do I just divide the total weight by 8 and that's the portion size? This is what I did last night for dinner and then weighed out the leftover portions too. Though it weighed different amounts uncooked vs. cooked - which weight is the correct one? How do you determine how many portions if you're improvising a recipe? Am I totally overthinking this?

    Yeah, that's fine. You're eating the whole thing eventually anyway, right? So you're getting all the calories eventually, it may just be a little off from day to day. No big.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    I've only had my food scale for a couple of weeks, and I have some questions re: weighing for portion sizes. I tend to make big pots of food for dinner, then box the leftovers up in tupperware for lunches over the next few days. What I've been doing is weighing the pot (so I know weight to subtract later), tare-ing, adding each ingredient individually, writing down the weight and tare-ing between each ingredient. It sounds like that's consistent with what ya'll are doing.

    So if I'm doing a recipe, and it says "8 servings," do I just divide the total weight by 8 and that's the portion size? This is what I did last night for dinner and then weighed out the leftover portions too. Though it weighed different amounts uncooked vs. cooked - which weight is the correct one? How do you determine how many portions if you're improvising a recipe? Am I totally overthinking this?

    For correct serving weight, use the finished product weight. When it's my own creation, I just visually determine about how many servings it should be. It doesn't really matter what you call the serving sizes. If a serving size is 100 g, and I have 125 g, I just log 1.25 servings. Others, rather than use portion sizes, call 1 g a serving and simply log the number of grams they eat.
  • allieeveryday
    allieeveryday Posts: 85 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Yeah, that's fine. You're eating the whole thing eventually anyway, right? So you're getting all the calories eventually, it may just be a little off from day to day. No big.

    No, it's usually split between two of us. Husband doesn't weigh, so I'm just weighing leftovers and my portion.

  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Yeah, that's fine. You're eating the whole thing eventually anyway, right? So you're getting all the calories eventually, it may just be a little off from day to day. No big.

    No, it's usually split between two of us. Husband doesn't weigh, so I'm just weighing leftovers and my portion.

    Are you creating recipes in the Recipe section of your food diary, and assigning serving sizes? I assumed you were.
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    I've only had my food scale for a couple of weeks, and I have some questions re: weighing for portion sizes. I tend to make big pots of food for dinner, then box the leftovers up in tupperware for lunches over the next few days. What I've been doing is weighing the pot (so I know weight to subtract later), tare-ing, adding each ingredient individually, writing down the weight and tare-ing between each ingredient. It sounds like that's consistent with what ya'll are doing.

    So if I'm doing a recipe, and it says "8 servings," do I just divide the total weight by 8 and that's the portion size? This is what I did last night for dinner and then weighed out the leftover portions too. Though it weighed different amounts uncooked vs. cooked - which weight is the correct one? How do you determine how many portions if you're improvising a recipe? Am I totally overthinking this?

    I usually weigh my ingredients seperately and as I put them into the recipe builder. (Weigh my meat, put in pan. Weigh my pasta, put in pan, etc) I also keep a note of my pot/pan or what have you. At the end, I weigh the whole thing, and subtract the weight of the pot. I use the final cooked weight as my number of servings. (Example: 1579kg = 1579 "servings") When I plate my serving, I put the weight in grams as my number of servings. ( I served myself 300g =300 "servings"). I feel like it's less math this way. The trick is remembering to note the weight of my pot before hand. (I always seem to forget, lol).
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Yeah, that's fine. You're eating the whole thing eventually anyway, right? So you're getting all the calories eventually, it may just be a little off from day to day. No big.

    No, it's usually split between two of us. Husband doesn't weigh, so I'm just weighing leftovers and my portion.

    In this case, what I would do is weight the finished product, and enter that number as your total number of servings. Then when you take some leftovers, what ever amount that weighs, you enter that as your serving number for that particular meal. Sometimes what I'll do, is weigh it as I put it into containers and write the weight on the outside of the container using some masking tape, that way I know exactly what's in there without reweighing it.

    Yep, or if it's a Ziploc bag I just write on it with a sharpie.
  • allieeveryday
    allieeveryday Posts: 85 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Are you creating recipes in the Recipe section of your food diary, and assigning serving sizes? I assumed you were.

    Yes, exactly. Input everything into Recipe, including servings, and then using that total (and not inputting into the database! ;)
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    allieeveryday wrote: »
    I've only had my food scale for a couple of weeks, and I have some questions re: weighing for portion sizes. I tend to make big pots of food for dinner, then box the leftovers up in tupperware for lunches over the next few days. What I've been doing is weighing the pot (so I know weight to subtract later), tare-ing, adding each ingredient individually, writing down the weight and tare-ing between each ingredient. It sounds like that's consistent with what ya'll are doing.

    So if I'm doing a recipe, and it says "8 servings," do I just divide the total weight by 8 and that's the portion size? This is what I did last night for dinner and then weighed out the leftover portions too. Though it weighed different amounts uncooked vs. cooked - which weight is the correct one? How do you determine how many portions if you're improvising a recipe? Am I totally overthinking this?

    The trick is remembering to note the weight of my pot before hand. (I always seem to forget, lol).

    I keep a list of all of the weights of all my pots, pans, & baking pans/dishes on the fridge.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    Some people like to weigh the entire thing, enter the number of portions as number of grams (the recipe builder will ask you if you're sure you want X servings if it's over a certain number; like I made a batch of 40 cookies and it asked me if I was sure I meant 40 servings. Just say 'yes'.).

    I do like you do and divide the weight by the number of portions. I've noticed, though, that day-to-day the weight decreases. (So if a just-cooked recipe weighs 800 grams for 8 servings and I take off 100 on Monday and eat it, if I weigh what's left on Tuesday, it might only be 680 grams instead of 700.) Chalk it up to evaporation or something. You can either just keep weighing what's left and dividing by # of servings or store it from the get-go in single-serving containers.

    Uncooked weight is probably going to be more accurate because the cooking process will impact moisture. And while water has no calories, it does have weight. So, let's say you weigh out 200 grams of uncooked rice (one cup). Whether you cook it in 2 cups or 2.25 cups of water (package instructions can vary), the rice will absorb all the water if you let it simmer long enough. But the weights will be different. And sometimes, depending on how quickly you notice that the water's come to a boil, your rice might be cooking in slightly more or less water. (Note this IS majoring in the minors. And extra gram or two of cooked rice doesn't make a significant difference. But accuracy gets more important as you get closer to goal.) Of course, you can still go with the entries for cooked rice in the database and they should be reasonably on-target. Raw's just going to be narrowing the focus.

    For the whole thing, I'd probably go with the 'weigh out each ingredient, weigh the total, enter the gram weight as # of servings, and take what I want.
  • allieeveryday
    allieeveryday Posts: 85 Member
    Thanks ya'll, this is really helpful.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    estherdragonbat wrote: »
    Some people like to weigh the entire thing, enter the number of portions as number of grams (the recipe builder will ask you if you're sure you want X servings if it's over a certain number; like I made a batch of 40 cookies and it asked me if I was sure I meant 40 servings. Just say 'yes'.).


    Uncooked weight is probably going to be more accurate because the cooking process will impact moisture. And while water has no calories, it does have weight. So, let's say you weigh out 200 grams of uncooked rice (one cup). Whether you cook it in 2 cups or 2.25 cups of water (package instructions can vary), the rice will absorb all the water if you let it simmer long enough. But the weights will be different. And sometimes, depending on how quickly you notice that the water's come to a boil, your rice might be cooking in slightly more or less water. (Note this IS majoring in the minors. And extra gram or two of cooked rice doesn't make a significant difference. But accuracy gets more important as you get closer to goal.) Of course, you can still go with the entries for cooked rice in the database and they should be reasonably on-target. Raw's just going to be narrowing the focus.

    Maybe I'm not getting your point, but using the uncooked weight to determine the serving size/calories for the cooked dish doesn't make sense.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    Not for the cooked dish. For the raw ingredients that go into it.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    edited January 2019
    estherdragonbat wrote: »
    Not for the cooked dish. For the raw ingredients that go into it.

    Ah, yes :) I thought you were saying it would be more accurate to use the uncooked weight when determining serving sizes.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    estherdragonbat wrote: »
    Not for the cooked dish. For the raw ingredients that go into it.

    Yes! I weight everything raw when adding it into the recipe builder, but then use the cooked weight to determine the number of servings.
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited January 2019
    Did you try searching with "grams" in the food name? I've done that before. Or "usda". That will do it, too.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    I get fluid ounces of shredded cheese all the time, too. And it was a local company that didn't put the grams on the label. They finally added it, thankfully.
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Did you try searching with "grams" in the food name? I've done that before. Or "usda". That will do it, too.

    Sometimes that works. I cant remember what food it was (of course). But it was a packaged food so usda was out. I tried the search with "grams" and it had literally 1 entry that I wasn't confident in it's accuracy. And then it came up with all sorts of stuff that wasn't relevant. Now that I think about it, it was when MFP was having problems like a week ago. Maybe it was just a fluke. Bacon was interesting the other day. "Kirkland bacon" was one of the only ones showing grams. The rest was by the piece. Even USDA showed "pieces". But now it's working (Just tested it). So nevermind. I think they system was just going wonky that day.
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    I get fluid ounces of shredded cheese all the time, too. And it was a local company that didn't put the grams on the label. They finally added it, thankfully.

    I think it might have been shredded cheese... I eventually just used a different brand of cheese that was in my frequently used stuff, and weighed that. At that point I was thinking "screw it. clsoe enough".
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    I get fluid ounces of shredded cheese all the time, too. And it was a local company that didn't put the grams on the label. They finally added it, thankfully.

    I've seen it in Kraft or regional brands. Other solids too, just can't think of an example at the moment.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    cmriverside wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    This happened in one of MFP's #ImprovingOurWebsiteNotReally.

    I have all my foods entered now, but that was an annoying little *feature* they provided us a few years ago during an update and apparently don't feel the need to fix. The worst part is that it happened to their own Admin-entered entries (mostly,) so it messed with things that were already right.

    Milliliters for solid food and also garlic that's ten million calories. Thanks, MFP.

    Should have known... and here I was blaming users ;)
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,448 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    This happened in one of MFP's #ImprovingOurWebsiteNotReally.

    I have all my foods entered now, but that was an annoying little *feature* they provided us a few years ago during an update and apparently don't feel the need to fix. The worst part is that it happened to their own Admin-entered entries (mostly,) so it messed with things that were already right.

    Milliliters for solid food and also garlic that's ten million calories. Thanks, MFP.

    Should have known... and here I was blaming users ;)

    Only reason I knew is because I had been using it for so long and saw the changes in items I used regularly. Lots of them. So now I have them in MY FOODS correctly.

    Free, though. :wink:
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    cmriverside wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    Crafty_camper123 wrote: »
    I have a question though... Any tips on quickly finding an entry in GRAMS? There are a few foods I have come across that seem to insist I weigh in fluid ounces or milliliters. (For solid foods). I cant remember what food it was, but I scanned the barcode and my options were "1 serving" milliliters, or fluid ounces. I thought: "Okay no big I'll just switch my scale to ML or Fluid ounces and use that". Nope calories were off. Way off. So I looked it up manually. It took 5 minutes of poking at my phone to finally find one that measured in grams. Any faster way of doing this? Whats crazy is the package used grams as its serving! But it was a major PIA to find an entry in grams. Who is out there measuring thier solids in milliliters and fluid ounces?! (I do realize I can just use math and divide my weighed portion into the serving size, but it's nice to just plug the grams I weighed into the diary instead.)

    I see this "fluid ounces" thing more & more- don't remember coming across that 5 years ago. So annoying... "fluid ounces" of shredded cheese. *eye roll* But yes, use "grams" in your search

    This happened in one of MFP's #ImprovingOurWebsiteNotReally.

    I have all my foods entered now, but that was an annoying little *feature* they provided us a few years ago during an update and apparently don't feel the need to fix. The worst part is that it happened to their own Admin-entered entries (mostly,) so it messed with things that were already right.

    Milliliters for solid food and also garlic that's ten million calories. Thanks, MFP.

    That garlic gets me everytime i use the recipie builder. 'WHAT 900 calories a serving... for THAT?!?!?.. oh wait.. the garlic. 450 calories? muuuch better"
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    In the interest of fairness, the other day, for the first time ever, I had a recipe I entered in the recipe builder come up without a single mistake or wrong entry! Maybe it's a sign of great things to come ;)

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