Do you weigh meat before or after it’s cooked?

hollydelaney9839

I have noticed a weight difference on packages vs what the meat weighs after I cook It. I assume that is the fat content and some cslarirs biting off because of the cooking process. So I should weight the meat before I eat it, not before I cook it?

kshama2001

You can do either, just make sure you use an entry that specifies raw or cooked. All meat entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database will specify this.

When practical I use raw, and when not, like for bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, I used cooked, and don't worry about it.

Unfortunately, the 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.

The USDA recently changed the platform for their database and it is unfortunately a little more difficult to use. I uncheck everything but SR Legacy - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries. In order to find the entry I wanted for chicken I had to include a bunch of keywords. "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"

Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.

wilson10102018

Weigh meat before if it goes in a recipe where all of it is served and consumed. If it is fried or grilled or roasted in a pan where the rendered fat is not drunk, weigh it after cooking. Rendered fat from any meat has about 100 calories per tsbp. If you don't drink the fat don't weigh it in.

lemurcat2

If you are using package information and the meat has no bones, use pre cooking weight or you are going to underestimate cals.

If you buy meat without packaging (as I do) or are using bone-in meat, you may need to use the USDA entries (you can learn the syntax for finding them in MFP easily, something like "chicken, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted" (check here https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ and unclick all but "SR legacy"). With those use cooked or raw based on when you weighed it (and bones are not included in the weight so weigh without bones).