Question about weighing frozen food

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swimmchick87
swimmchick87 Posts: 458 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm a big fan of the Trader Joe's frozen section. This might be a dumb question, but is the weight on the nutrition labels for the food when it's frozen, or cooked? I'm confused about when I should weigh it for logging- right out of the package or after it's cooked. On some foods, the weight is drastically different depending on if it's frozen or cooked and although they also give a measuring cup serving, it's mostly stuff that I also feel would be wildly inaccurate trying to measure with measuring cups.

Also, if you were just going to leave a judgmental comment about eating frozen foods, you can keep that to yourself. I 100% do not care about "clean eating." Thanks :wink: .

Replies

  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,752 Member
    edited July 2018
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    The label often states if its cooked/prepared weight or raw/frozen weight.

    I don't eat a lot of packaged frozen foods but I weigh and portion meat before freezing and it doesn't change weight when frozen
  • swimmchick87
    swimmchick87 Posts: 458 Member
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    livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
    The label often states if its cooked/prepared weight or raw/frozen weight.

    I don't eat a lot of packaged frozen foods but I weigh and portion meat before freezing and it doesn't change weight when frozen

    Obviously I wouldn't be asking if the package said if it was a cooked or frozen weight. And like I already said, for several of the foods I've tried, I've weighed before and after cooking and the weight is drastically different. Just one example, last night I made some sweet potato fries as a side and they weighed about twice as much frozen as they did cooked.
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,752 Member
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    swimmchick87 wrote: »
    livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
    The label often states if its cooked/prepared weight or raw/frozen weight.

    I don't eat a lot of packaged frozen foods but I weigh and portion meat before freezing and it doesn't change weight when frozen

    Obviously I wouldn't be asking if the package said if it was a cooked or frozen weight. And like I already said, for several of the foods I've tried, I've weighed before and after cooking and the weight is drastically different. Just one example, last night I made some sweet potato fries as a side and they weighed about twice as much frozen as they did cooked.

    If it doesn't state frozen or prepared, then check the number and weight of serves per pack and compare it to the total weight of the pack.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,594 Member
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    swimmchick87 wrote: »
    I'm a big fan of the Trader Joe's frozen section. This might be a dumb question, but is the weight on the nutrition labels for the food when it's frozen, or cooked? I'm confused about when I should weigh it for logging- right out of the package or after it's cooked. On some foods, the weight is drastically different depending on if it's frozen or cooked and although they also give a measuring cup serving, it's mostly stuff that I also feel would be wildly inaccurate trying to measure with measuring cups.

    Also, if you were just going to leave a judgmental comment about eating frozen foods, you can keep that to yourself. I 100% do not care about "clean eating." Thanks :wink: .

    I can't really answer the question but the couple times I did a weighing test, they weighed the same. This was mostly on a chicken breast tho.

    What you said about judgmental comments made me LOL. I was in the demo area of Trader Joe's the other day and commented to the guy that I wish they didn't demo a lot of frozen and refrigerated items. He was all, "Well, we can't exactly make things from scratch." a little snarkily (imo) and "Nonononono, I sooooooooooooo don't have a problem with frozen foods! I just can't buy them while I'm still here since I have to go back to work!" gushed out of mine.
  • viajera99
    viajera99 Posts: 252 Member
    edited July 2018
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    I always weigh frozen. If it says a serving of 81 grams is 30 kcal, I pour it out of the bag to 81 grams and log 30 kcal.
  • maureenkhilde
    maureenkhilde Posts: 850 Member
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    I weigh food after cooking/baking/grilling. And this I know this is one of those questions where you will get answers both ways. Some foods do seem to weigh different before and after being cooked. Reason I do this way, goes way back for me. At point in time I worked in a hospital kitchen, and there portions were weighed out after food was cooked for patients who were on any type of restricted diet. So I got in the habit of doing afterwards. I wonder if some foods are to be done one way? And totally agree about the whole measuring cup thing.
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,874 Member
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    livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
    swimmchick87 wrote: »
    livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
    The label often states if its cooked/prepared weight or raw/frozen weight.

    I don't eat a lot of packaged frozen foods but I weigh and portion meat before freezing and it doesn't change weight when frozen

    Obviously I wouldn't be asking if the package said if it was a cooked or frozen weight. And like I already said, for several of the foods I've tried, I've weighed before and after cooking and the weight is drastically different. Just one example, last night I made some sweet potato fries as a side and they weighed about twice as much frozen as they did cooked.

    If it doesn't state frozen or prepared, then check the number and weight of serves per pack and compare it to the total weight of the pack.

    This. Typically frozen foods would be weighed before cooking, but the math will tell you for sure.

    Not sure why you felt the need to add a disclaimer about eating frozen foods. If anyone here has given you flack about that here previously, I assure you they are not in the majority!
  • iowalinda
    iowalinda Posts: 354 Member
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    swimmchick87 wrote: »
    I'm a big fan of the Trader Joe's frozen section. This might be a dumb question, but is the weight on the nutrition labels for the food when it's frozen, or cooked? I'm confused about when I should weigh it for logging- right out of the package or after it's cooked. On some foods, the weight is drastically different depending on if it's frozen or cooked and although they also give a measuring cup serving, it's mostly stuff that I also feel would be wildly inaccurate trying to measure with measuring cups.
    I've wondered this, too. I usually just do something like: used half the bag, so calculate calories for half the stated weight of the bag :)
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    I always weigh frozen.

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