How do I weigh my food?

audiofreedom

I've had success by using cup/tablespoons and the listed serving sizes etc but I know that weighing your food is the golden standard. I did a search but didn't see anyone break this topic down. Maybe this is a straight forward and I'm being silly but I want to make sure I'm doing it right when I start!

Can someone explain how to do it for us newbies?

janejellyroll

Here's how I do it:

If I'm weighing something that can just go on the scale (like a piece of fruit or a potato), I turn the scale on, allow it to turn on, and then put the item on the scale. Some scales have different unit of measure settings, mine is usually always set to grams so I don't have to adjust it. Once I see how many grams it is, I find an entry for the item that has grams available. Grams are usually available in 1 gram or 100 gram increments. If an entry just has 100 grams and you have a tangerine that weighs 44 grams, you just enter .44 and it will be correct.

If it's something that I don't want to put directly on the scale, I'll either put the bowl on the scale and turn it on (which means I'll start with 0) or turn on the scale, put on the bowl, and then press "TARE" (which returns the scale to zero). Then I'll put my food in the bowl and follow the same steps.

If I want to weigh multiple things (say I'm making a salad), I'll begin with the bowl like above, add an ingredient, record the weight, press "TARE" to return the scale to zero, add the next ingredient, note the weight . . . repeat until done.

For me it took a couple of days to get used to weighing stuff, but now I can pretty much do it in my sleep.

ninerbuff

janejellyroll wrote: »

Here's how I do it:

If I'm weighing something that can just go on the scale (like a piece of fruit or a potato), I turn the scale on, allow it to turn on, and then put the item on the scale. Some scales have different unit of measure settings, mine is usually always set to grams so I don't have to adjust it. Once I see how many grams it is, I find an entry for the item that has grams available. Grams are usually available in 1 gram or 100 gram increments. If an entry just has 100 grams and you have a tangerine that weighs 44 grams, you just enter .44 and it will be correct.

If it's something that I don't want to put directly on the scale, I'll either put the bowl on the scale and turn it on (which means I'll start with 0) or turn on the scale, put on the bowl, and then press "TARE" (which returns the scale to zero). Then I'll put my food in the bowl and follow the same steps.

If I want to weigh multiple things (say I'm making a salad), I'll begin with the bowl like above, add an ingredient, record the weight, press "TARE" to return the scale to zero, add the next ingredient, note the weight . . . repeat until done.

For me it took a couple of days to get used to weighing stuff, but now I can pretty much do it in my sleep.

THIS.


A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

audiofreedom

janejellyroll wrote: »

Here's how I do it:

If I'm weighing something that can just go on the scale (like a piece of fruit or a potato), I turn the scale on, allow it to turn on, and then put the item on the scale. Some scales have different unit of measure settings, mine is usually always set to grams so I don't have to adjust it. Once I see how many grams it is, I find an entry for the item that has grams available. Grams are usually available in 1 gram or 100 gram increments. If an entry just has 100 grams and you have a tangerine that weighs 44 grams, you just enter .44 and it will be correct.

If it's something that I don't want to put directly on the scale, I'll either put the bowl on the scale and turn it on (which means I'll start with 0) or turn on the scale, put on the bowl, and then press "TARE" (which returns the scale to zero). Then I'll put my food in the bowl and follow the same steps.

If I want to weigh multiple things (say I'm making a salad), I'll begin with the bowl like above, add an ingredient, record the weight, press "TARE" to return the scale to zero, add the next ingredient, note the weight . . . repeat until done.

For me it took a couple of days to get used to weighing stuff, but now I can pretty much do it in my sleep.

Thank you!

I usually create a recipe for everything I cook that take more than one ingredient (example: I would copy the ingredient list from this recipe into the recipe import thing https://www.budgetbytes.com/hearty-black-bean-quesadillas).

Wondering if I should create a recipe with the weighed ingredients instead or if it makes more sense to just weigh everything one by one.

natgurl95

You should weigh out the ingredients as you create the recipe in the mfp recipe creator. Once I finish a recipe I usually weigh it, and create servings that way. For example, if I make soup, I weigh out the finished soup in ounces, and where the mfp recipe creator asks for the number of servings I will put in the weight in ounces. A 30 oz pot of soup is 30 "servings", and I weigh out however much I end up eating and log that many "servings".

audiofreedom

natgurl95 wrote: »

You should weigh out the ingredients as you create the recipe in the mfp recipe creator. Once I finish a recipe I usually weigh it, and create servings that way. For example, if I make soup, I weigh out the finished soup in ounces, and where the mfp recipe creator asks for the number of servings I will put in the weight in ounces. A 30 oz pot of soup is 30 "servings", and I weigh out however much I end up eating and log that many "servings".

Thank you so much! That's really helpful!

callsitlikeiseeit

single items are easy and quick to put on a scale.

recipes get a little more complicated.

i weigh each ingredient to the gram and jot it down

total it up

so say 1000 grams is the total weight (say soup, casserole, whatever)

when i dish up i put it on the plate/scale- and say its 300 grams

my serving amount is 300 servings


there are several ways to do this. consistency is more important than anything else to me, that's how i do it. some go by the finished cooked weight. my scale cant handle my larger pots (cast iron) so for me... this is the easiest way to do it. you get used to working on larger numbers.

I had to scroll back a bit on my diary for the last 'mixed' recipe i did, but Thursday the 4th i had a quiche/egg casserole that measured out to 244 'servings' (grams) on my plate. the recipe for dinner tonight is the websites recipe and mfps calorie estimate, i will enter it myself when i actually prepare it this afternoon to get an accurate count.

BarbaraHelen2013

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

single items are easy and quick to put on a scale.

recipes get a little more complicated.

i weigh each ingredient to the gram and jot it down

total it up

so say 1000 grams is the total weight (say soup, casserole, whatever)

when i dish up i put it on the plate/scale- and say its 300 grams

my serving amount is 300 servings


there are several ways to do this. consistency is more important than anything else to me, that's how i do it. some go by the finished cooked weight. my scale cant handle my larger pots (cast iron) so for me... this is the easiest way to do it. you get used to working on larger numbers.

I had to scroll back a bit on my diary for the last 'mixed' recipe i did, but Thursday the 4th i had a quiche/egg casserole that measured out to 244 'servings' (grams) on my plate. the recipe for dinner tonight is the websites recipe and mfps calorie estimate, i will enter it myself when i actually prepare it this afternoon to get an accurate count.

I’m not sure that I’m reading that correctly, the way you meant to say it. It reads as if you add up the individual gram weights on paper, as it were, (or calculator/abacus - whatever) then use that as the finished weight of the dish?

If that’s what you did mean it’s not going to be accurate for practically all cooked foods. I guess it’ll work for cold dishes such as salads, coleslaw etc.

Doing it that way doesn’t factor in lost weight in water evaporation during cooking etc, or the addition of water, if a casserole looks a little dry etc. Obviously, depending on what the dish is and how long it cooks the volume loss will vary wildly, as will calorie count accuracy. Which may not matter hugely to some, but might be make or break to people with small deficits.

A, possibly, better way is to weigh the ingredients by the gram as you add them to the recipe, then once the cooked dish is complete, weigh the finished product (I decant it into a bowl on the scale to do this, but some people keep note of the weights of their pans and once they’ve weighed the pan and contents, they subtract the pan weight from the scale number.

Then, as above, enter that weight in grams as the number of servings on the recipe in MFP. When you wish to log a portion weigh it out and enter the gram weight of that portion as the number of servings.

Apologies if I misunderstood, but just wanted to clarify for the OP to be as clear as possible, since she’s very new to using a scale.

penguinmama87

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

Doing it that way doesn’t factor in lost weight in water evaporation during cooking etc, or the addition of water, if a casserole looks a little dry etc. Obviously, depending on what the dish is and how long it cooks the volume loss will vary wildly, as will calorie count accuracy. Which may not matter hugely to some, but might be make or break to people with small deficits.

A, possibly, better way is to weigh the ingredients by the gram as you add them to the recipe, then once the cooked dish is complete, weigh the finished product (I decant it into a bowl on the scale to do this, but some people keep note of the weights of their pans and once they’ve weighed the pan and contents, they subtract the pan weight from the scale number.

I have been thinking about the water thing a bit since I started weighing. Because my scale is pretty flimsy and I'm nervous about putting something hot on it even with a pad or trivet, I often will weigh a casserole dish before I put it in the oven. I do wonder if it's "losing" grams while it bakes, enough to alter the nutrition data. I'm probably going to have to get a new scale that can handle more weight anyway since I'm typically cooking in very large quantities, so maybe this is the time to go for it.

I suppose I could do an experiment where I weigh before and after to see how much is lost, if I trusted the scale to tell me!

AnnPT77

alisdairsmommy wrote: »

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

Doing it that way doesn’t factor in lost weight in water evaporation during cooking etc, or the addition of water, if a casserole looks a little dry etc. Obviously, depending on what the dish is and how long it cooks the volume loss will vary wildly, as will calorie count accuracy. Which may not matter hugely to some, but might be make or break to people with small deficits.

A, possibly, better way is to weigh the ingredients by the gram as you add them to the recipe, then once the cooked dish is complete, weigh the finished product (I decant it into a bowl on the scale to do this, but some people keep note of the weights of their pans and once they’ve weighed the pan and contents, they subtract the pan weight from the scale number.

I have been thinking about the water thing a bit since I started weighing. Because my scale is pretty flimsy and I'm nervous about putting something hot on it even with a pad or trivet, I often will weigh a casserole dish before I put it in the oven. I do wonder if it's "losing" grams while it bakes, enough to alter the nutrition data. I'm probably going to have to get a new scale that can handle more weight anyway since I'm typically cooking in very large quantities, so maybe this is the time to go for it.

I suppose I could do an experiment where I weigh before and after to see how much is lost, if I trusted the scale to tell me!

Depending on the food involved, it can make quite a difference. There are things I roast that routinely lose 1/4-1/3 of their weight from evaporation in the oven.

penguinmama87

AnnPT77 wrote: »

alisdairsmommy wrote: »

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

Doing it that way doesn’t factor in lost weight in water evaporation during cooking etc, or the addition of water, if a casserole looks a little dry etc. Obviously, depending on what the dish is and how long it cooks the volume loss will vary wildly, as will calorie count accuracy. Which may not matter hugely to some, but might be make or break to people with small deficits.

A, possibly, better way is to weigh the ingredients by the gram as you add them to the recipe, then once the cooked dish is complete, weigh the finished product (I decant it into a bowl on the scale to do this, but some people keep note of the weights of their pans and once they’ve weighed the pan and contents, they subtract the pan weight from the scale number.

I have been thinking about the water thing a bit since I started weighing. Because my scale is pretty flimsy and I'm nervous about putting something hot on it even with a pad or trivet, I often will weigh a casserole dish before I put it in the oven. I do wonder if it's "losing" grams while it bakes, enough to alter the nutrition data. I'm probably going to have to get a new scale that can handle more weight anyway since I'm typically cooking in very large quantities, so maybe this is the time to go for it.

I suppose I could do an experiment where I weigh before and after to see how much is lost, if I trusted the scale to tell me!

Depending on the food involved, it can make quite a difference. There are things I roast that routinely lose 1/4-1/3 of their weight from evaporation in the oven.

Well, I bought a scale with a much higher capacity and now I think I know what my kids are doing for science (with some bonus math!) this week!