Stupid questions about weighing food

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AmberGlitterSparkles
AmberGlitterSparkles Posts: 699 Member
in Food and Nutrition
A lot of you suggested that I weigh my food. I had a scale, but it wasn’t suited for this kind of use. Wasn’t digital couldn’t tare, and found it not to be that accurate for everything. It was mainly meant for meat. So I bought the right kind.

A lot of times I cook larger meals for my family, sometimes things like casseroles, duchess potatoes etc. no, I’m not saying I eat all of this all the time. I certainly would make it a much smaller part of a more healthy meal, but I still would like to try it. So, if I were to make a big casserole for example. Would I weigh all of the ingredients for the whole casserole, to come up with a calorie count? Then plate myself a small portion and weigh that to some how find out how many calories that piece is?

I know this probably sounds dumb to a lot of you, but I am legitimately trying to learn. So, I would really appreciate any constructive help or tips anyone has to offer about using the scale. Thank you.
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Replies

  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
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    To add to the great advice above, you won't need to do this for very long. You will get good at eyeballing, at least I have. Not a stupid question at all.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
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    I do it the servings way @23rochelle23 described. Often I place my pan or dish right onto the scale and just put the ingredients straight into it one at a time to weigh. Then estimate how many servings and enter that in the recipe builder. So 1/8 of the total is a serving, say. If I eat a quarter of it instead, that's two servings. Since it's just me and my husband and I have an awareness of how much he eats, it's easy to estimate our serving size pretty closely.

    For the most part, stuff I cook at home is fairly low calorie since I'm controlling what goes into it, so being off a little bit won't make a big difference in my logging. If you are making calorie dense foods you may want to be more accurate.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    AmberGlitterSparkles wrote: »
    So, if I were to make a big casserole for example. Would I weigh all of the ingredients for the whole casserole, to come up with a calorie count? Then plate myself a small portion and weigh that to some how find out how many calories that piece is?

    The answer is yes. If you want to be accurate, use the recipe builder. Enter each ingredient, weigh at all and combine it normally. Estimate how many servings you get out of it and you'll have a much closer calorie count per serving to enter into your diary. Cool thing about it is that you can always go back to that recipe, edit it, and use the exact same ingredients and weights and make the same thing again. I can't tell you how many times my family has told me "hey could you make that thing you did before" and I'll go back to my recipes find it, hit the edit button and know exactly what I put into it and it comes out perfect when I make it again.

    If you really want to be 100% accurate, when it's done, put a large bowl on your scale and tare it, set it to grams, and scrape the entire thing into the bowl. Divide that weight by the number of servings and re-label the name of the recipe with the amount of grams per serving. Then when you go to eat a serving you can put your plate on the scale, scoop on the casserole until the perfect amount of grams shows for that serving and stop. Poof you have the perfect serving on your plate with the exact number of calories for that serving. I do this for recipes like chili. I simply pour the chili into another bowl to get the weight of what I've made, and then divide that by the number of servings.

    The reverse is true also. We have bowls we like to use specifically for soups and chili. So I'll weigh it all so I know how much the recipe makes. Then I'll put one of our serving bowls on the scale and tare it out. I'll fill it to where we normally do for a full bowl, and weigh the contents in grams. Then divide the recipe's weight by the weight of your serving and you now know exactly how many servings the recipe makes with those bowls.

    It's tedious the first time but after that you can make the same recipe, scoop out what you normally do in your bowls that you normally use, and know that you're pretty close without even weighing it to an exact serving.

    Here's a quick example I did last night. I make this all the time. While BBQ'ing steaks on the grill (or whatever I am grilling that day) I use the side burner to make pan seared cauliflower and carrots. I'll put 300g cauliflower florets and 250g baby cut carrots into a pan with 2tbs of olive oil. I'll add salt and pepper and let it cook in a pan on the grill while I finish grilling. I'll continue to flip it until the carrots and the cauliflower are done and have brown crispy edges, then give half to my wife and half to me as a side dish. It makes exactly 2 servings. Something like 180 calories per serving and it's a pretty big side dish with lots of fiber. That's just a simple example of a recipe I repeat constantly that I added in the recipe builder. Each time I make it I weigh the ingredients and make it the same way. Casseroles are a bit more complicated because they have more ingredients but the concept is the same.



  • AmberGlitterSparkles
    AmberGlitterSparkles Posts: 699 Member
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    Thank you all s much this has been really helpful! Think I’ve got it! I never thought about using the recipe builder but that’s a great idea. I don’t really make casseroles and such that often. But I do make a lot of side dishes and such that I have to split among the family. Also soups and chilli and stuff like that.
  • ncfitbit
    ncfitbit Posts: 1,058 Member
    edited June 2018
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    Ooh, great idea! I need to do that.

    I keep post-in notes and a pen in the drawer where I keep my scale so I can quickly write the weight of ingredients as I go if it's a new recipe.

    Not sure if someone said this already, but for some family dishes I just enter the whole recipe as 1 serving, weigh the total after cooking and do the math after I weigh out my portion.

    For example, suppose the final casserole weighs 1000 grams. I put my plate on the scale, tare it, and serve myself 222 grams of the dish. I would enter .22 of a serving for it.

    I do this because everyone in my family eats different size portions so it's difficult to eyeball a portion. And it makes it harder to fool myself about how much of the final dish I had.

    If I am doing it by servings I will try to include the portion size in the recipe name. For example, if I make my own dressing I will figure out how many TBL it made, enter that in the number of servings and then name the recipe "Green goddess dressing per TBL" so when I enter it over the next few days I dont' have to look it up each time.
  • AmberGlitterSparkles
    AmberGlitterSparkles Posts: 699 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    I have a post-it note in the kitchen that has the weights of all the pots/pans/casserole dishes I use often so I don't have to weigh them every time. I just weigh the finished product and subtract the weight of the dish from the post-it.
    That’s a great idea too. I think someone else mentioned it also. I would have never thought to do that.
  • sebastiao_teresa
    sebastiao_teresa Posts: 8 Member
    edited June 2018
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    Hi look for an app Cook and Count . Really useful . I do weight what I cook from scratch due my daughter's Diabetes T 1 . Is really good and at the and you know what is your intake . 😘
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    sebastiao_teresa wrote: »
    Hi look for an app Cook and Count . Really useful . I do weight what I cook from scratch due my daughter's Diabetes T 1 . Is really good and at the and you know what is your intake . 😘

    Or she could just use the recipe builder on the site she's already using to log her food.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    AmberGlitterSparkles wrote: »
    Thank you all s much this has been really helpful! Think I’ve got it! I never thought about using the recipe builder but that’s a great idea. I don’t really make casseroles and such that often. But I do make a lot of side dishes and such that I have to split among the family. Also soups and chilli and stuff like that.

    Love the recipe builder, and by using the final weight as the number of servings, if you have leftovers the next day, you just weight it and enter that as your number of servings. I also add the ingredients as I'm cooking. So weigh stuff and write it down, but when there's a moment that everything is simmering, I'll add the ingredients so I don't have to add it all when I'm done.
  • AmberGlitterSparkles
    AmberGlitterSparkles Posts: 699 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    AmberGlitterSparkles wrote: »
    Thank you all s much this has been really helpful! Think I’ve got it! I never thought about using the recipe builder but that’s a great idea. I don’t really make casseroles and such that often. But I do make a lot of side dishes and such that I have to split among the family. Also soups and chilli and stuff like that.

    Love the recipe builder, and by using the final weight as the number of servings, if you have leftovers the next day, you just weight it and enter that as your number of servings. I also add the ingredients as I'm cooking. So weigh stuff and write it down, but when there's a moment that everything is simmering, I'll add the ingredients so I don't have to add it all when I'm done.
    That’s a great idea! I was just putting everything as 1 serving, then weighing my portions, then diving to see the percent of the potion and figuring it out that way. Your way is soooo much easier!
  • JLG1986
    JLG1986 Posts: 211 Member
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    This is a tough one - cooking food will likely change its weight. So while I weigh in all the ingredients, I usually divide the resulting dish by volume when entertaining. If I’m just making it for lunches or something, I might weigh out the resulting portions like a true scale devotee :smile:
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,987 Member
    edited July 2018
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    I know cooking changes the weight - but if recipe has x ingredients ( eg carrot 125 grams) and then final cooked weight is, say, 2000 g ( after deducting weight of pot ) and you call it 20 serves of 100g - each 100g is still a 20th of the total.

    This is the method I use for all homemade soups.

    For things like curry that I know makes 3 serves, I just call it 3 serves and then don't weigh them, I know I always have aprox one third of total as my serve.
  • ChelleTrell
    ChelleTrell Posts: 49 Member
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    AmberGlitterSparkles wrote: »
    A lot of you suggested that I weigh my food. I had a scale, but it wasn’t suited for this kind of use. Wasn’t digital couldn’t tare, and found it not to be that accurate for everything. It was mainly meant for meat. So I bought the right kind.

    A lot of times I cook larger meals for my family, sometimes things like casseroles, duchess potatoes etc. no, I’m not saying I eat all of this all the time. I certainly would make it a much smaller part of a more healthy meal, but I still would like to try it. So, if I were to make a big casserole for example. Would I weigh all of the ingredients for the whole casserole, to come up with a calorie count? Then plate myself a small portion and weigh that to some how find out how many calories that piece is?

    I know this probably sounds dumb to a lot of you, but I am legitimately trying to learn. So, I would really appreciate any constructive help or tips anyone has to offer about using the scale. Thank you.

    Thank you so much for posting this! I literally got on the message boards tonight because I had the exact same question. I just got my food scale and I wanna be as accurate as I possibly can with my home recipes and meal prep.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    Love the recipe builder, and by using the final weight as the number of servings, if you have leftovers the next day, you just weight it and enter that as your number of servings. I also add the ingredients as I'm cooking. So weigh stuff and write it down, but when there's a moment that everything is simmering, I'll add the ingredients so I don't have to add it all when I'm done.

    That's not a bad idea either. I have several where the serving size is 1g. Just weigh what you put on the plate in grams and enter that many servings.

  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
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    AmberGlitterSparkles wrote: »
    Thank you all s much this has been really helpful! Think I’ve got it! I never thought about using the recipe builder but that’s a great idea. I don’t really make casseroles and such that often. But I do make a lot of side dishes and such that I have to split among the family. Also soups and chilli and stuff like that.

    Recipe builder is a lifesaver when you're cooking for your family and makes it so much easier to have everyone eat the same thing and just weigh it out at the end to fit your calories. I have a sticky note on the inside of my cabinet with the weights of the most common dishes I use, so I can get straight to weighing the ingredients and cooking without having to weigh the "vessel" each time. Sometimes I will cook it in a large pan on the stovetop (which is too heavy to weigh), but then I'll serve up the dish in a larger serving dish that I can weigh. I just log the total number of grams after everything is cooked and enter that as the total # of servings in the recipe. Then, I weigh out X amount of grams to see where the calories fall, and pick the # of grams that fits the calorie goal I have for that meal.

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