Weigh food b4 or after cooking?
TrainerRB
Posts: 1 Member
Do I weigh my food before or after cooking? Specifically meat.
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Replies
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There are entries for cooked (specifying the method) and raw meats, and weighing raw or cooked are both fine so long as you choose the right entry. Some will say that it's better to weigh raw because weight will vary based on how done you cook it, but sometimes that's impossible (as with bone-in meats) or just more difficult, and both are going to be good enough.2
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Either, just make sure you use a good entry, as stated above.
Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.1 -
I weigh mine raw. I don't know what oils, etc. others might have cooked it in.1
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I think it depends on the meat. For chicken, I weigh raw, because all that cooks out of it is water. So it is better to weigh raw to get a more exact weigh in.
As far as beef, a lot depends on how fatty it is and the cooking method. Some method of cooking beef cook out significant amounts of fat so it may be better to weight cooked via that cooking method.
Grains, such as rice and pasta, are always best weighed raw.1 -
Weigh it after...whatever is there is is what is going into your body. if you eat it raw, weigh it raw.....common sense....1
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@MikePTY What design is on your gloves?
I think most nutritional guides will specify raw or cooked weight.
Look at the nutritional label on the food. (Even meat) It will also specify.
When not specified......raw food.0 -
looks like captain america to me!
a food losing water doesn't change its calorie/nutrition content. i try raw, but most foods have a cooked entry in the usda database. close enough.
i miss the woo button.0 -
Weigh it after...whatever is there is is what is going into your body. if you eat it raw, weigh it raw.....common sense....
Except for the very occasional mistake when I have forgotten I weigh everything raw. If there is a bone in it I weigh it afterwards and deduct from the raw weight. I have seen people argue the issue back and forth but weighing raw works for me and I lose according to my logged deficit. I assume if I changed to cooked entries I would probably get the same results but I am unwilling to change from what has worked now for 19 months.
Besides raw works for everything including breaded meat and recipes in which the meat cooks among other ingredients.1 -
MamboRumba wrote: »@MikePTY What design is on your gloves?
I think most nutritional guides will specify raw or cooked weight.
Look at the nutritional label on the food. (Even meat) It will also specify.
When not specified......raw food.
@MamboRumba - it's Captain America. They are part of the Marvel line from Hayabusa fight. At my gym I am known as "El Capi", partially because I am a big Marvel and Capitan America fan, and also partially because I am one of the only Americans training at the gym (I live outside the US). So I've kinda rolled into the identity. I got them as a birthday gift from my mother.
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Weigh it after...whatever is there is is what is going into your body. if you eat it raw, weigh it raw.....common sense....
This may "sound" like common sense, but it actually wildly incorrect. Cooking either adds or removes water (depending on the item) from the raw/uncooked thing you are cooking. This changes the weight, but doesn't change the amount of calories. How long you cook something for, along with the method of cooking, can change the water content of an item. One person's 150 grams of cooked chicken may have the same calorie content as 180 grams of someone else's cooked chicken, depending on how they cooked it.
My only exceptions to this, as mentioned above, are high fat meats where you cook via a method that cooks out a significant amount of the fat. Then cooked is probably better of the two. Microwaved bacon is a good example. Microwaving bacon between two paper towels removes a significant amount of fat, so weighing it raw over estimates the calories.3 -
A tablespoon of fat not eaten with the dish separates 120 calories from the item. I've poured a half a cup of pure fat from a chicken roasting pan. And, non fatty food acquires water in cooking which adds weight but not calories.1
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yeah bacon is the one i always weigh cooked.. last time i made baked beans a whole pound of applewood smoked bacon cooked down to a little less than 4 oz...0
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wilson10102018 wrote: »A tablespoon of fat not eaten with the dish separates 120 calories from the item. I've poured a half a cup of pure fat from a chicken roasting pan. And, non fatty food acquires water in cooking which adds weight but not calories.
Your point is valid and I suspect if people eat more fattier cuts of meat they should probably consider cooked. I don't.0 -
yeah bacon is the one i always weigh cooked.. last time i made baked beans a whole pound of applewood smoked bacon cooked down to a little less than 4 oz...
I don't weigh bacon at all. I cook it really crispy and accept it as the package serving size. If I ate it everyday I would probably figure out a better system but I eat it a couple of times a month and then usually less than 4 strips each time.0 -
I weigh mine raw. I don't know what oils, etc. others might have cooked it in.
A good USDA cooked entry won't have oils or anything added.
Not saying not to weigh raw if that works for you, but it has nothing to do with how others cooked it, since the accurate entries will never be other people's recipes.1 -
MamboRumba wrote: »@MikePTY What design is on your gloves?
I think most nutritional guides will specify raw or cooked weight.
Look at the nutritional label on the food. (Even meat) It will also specify.
When not specified......raw food.
It's not uncommon to have meat without a nutritional label. I mostly get mine from a farm, but even if I buy at a butcher counter, no label. Thus, the USDA entries.0 -
Folks who say always, are always wrong.just_Tomek wrote: »I am in the before camp. Always raw, always in grams.
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Opinions are never wrong. 😒1
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Opinions are never wrong. 😒
Ya see, I am of the opinion that categorically and without exception making the claim that all claims made categorically and without exception are false is mildly humorous even if arguably true. Didn't expect it to be taken seriously. Perhaps you are making the same joke with the statement that opinions are never wrong.0 -
So, if chicken loses water when cooked (let’s assume it was baked without adding ANYTHING to it), doesn’t it make sense to weigh it after cooking? Wouldn’t you want the “true” weight after cooking out the water? Why would you choose higher weight/calories if it’s just due to water?0
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So, if chicken loses water when cooked (let’s assume it was baked without adding ANYTHING to it), doesn’t it make sense to weigh it after cooking? Wouldn’t you want the “true” weight after cooking out the water? Why would you choose higher weight/calories if it’s just due to water?
No, because the amount of water lost will vary with the method and length of time of cooking. If something is cooked and is still juicy, it has lost less water than something that is cooked to shoe leather consistency. It makes more sense to weigh it before, since it is less variable.
That being said, I usually add everything as part of a recipe and therefore it's easier to weigh everything as I add it (raw). If you are going to weigh something that is already cooked, then find a database entry that is also cooked.1 -
Opinions are never wrong. 😒
Ya see, I am of the opinion that categorically and without exception making the claim that all claims made categorically and without exception are false is mildly humorous even if arguably true. Didn't expect it to be taken seriously. Perhaps you are making the same joke with the statement that opinions are never wrong.
Don't get out much, do you... 😁0 -
So, if chicken loses water when cooked (let’s assume it was baked without adding ANYTHING to it), doesn’t it make sense to weigh it after cooking? Wouldn’t you want the “true” weight after cooking out the water? Why would you choose higher weight/calories if it’s just due to water?
The idea is that if we are talking about standard, no salt water or anything else added chicken, the amount of water in the raw is likely to vary less than the amount in the cooked, since people cook chicken to different amounts of doneness (different cooking methods are less significant since your entry will specify cooking method).
This is also why if you get the kinds of supermarket chicken with salt water added, it's best to use the package information, as it will be more accurate than the USDA raw information (and the package information is for raw).
The truth is it doesn't make much difference whether you weigh raw or cooked, so long as you choose the right entry, and especially for chicken as there's not that much flexibility in how rare you can cook chicken (it must be cooked to done-ness), and even if you instead on overcooking it so it loses all it's juices, the difference in calories won't be that great.1 -
OK, we all have experiences with what we eat. If its boneless skinless chicken breast fillets then it won't matter much if you weigh it before or after cooking. Its still a piece of fat free whatnot for the most part.
But, a small chicken of only about 600 grams renders out about a calorie of fat for every gram of raw weight. And, if one is not consuming the rendered fat then that 750 calories of fat from a small chicken is going in the bin with the bones. Not on my diary.0
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