Logging Food

bensmom555

Can you help clarify? In the Food journal, do the measurements & gram or ounce total = before or after cooking?

claireychn074

It can actually be either depending on the entry you select. For accuracy, it’s best to weigh food before cooking as it can lose or absorb moisture during cooking, affecting the weight i.e. pasta and rice will weigh a lot more after cooking as they absorb water. Roast meat will weigh less after cooking as it loses water. So when you log food, carefully check the packet to see if it states raw or cooked calories, and carefully check the entry you select on MFP to see if it states raw or cooked (as the database is user populated, it contains a mixture).

goal06082021

If it's not clear, look for an entry that specifies uncooked or cooked, and if cooked, the method. Check what comes up against the label in your hand (for packaged/processed foods) or the USDA SR Legacy database (for whole foods). If you search using the USDA syntax, you can usually find an entry that matches that way. Even if you're scanning barcodes, double-check because the barcode scanner isn't downloading anything; it's just searching the database without you having to type anything in. Recipes change, the database goes back ~15 years, and barcodes get reused, especially if you buy house brand or shop at a place like Aldi where it's all house brand.

If at all possible, use the raw/uncooked/dry weight and corresponding entries. I cook +/- 90% of what I eat at home and make extensive use of the recipe builder on here. I weigh out my raw-but-prepped ingredients (e.g., I dice up my onion and weigh it like that, I don't put the whole onion on the scale since I'm going to discard part of it) and use that when I put the recipe into the builder. Then I weigh the finished dish to figure out my serving size, because most of what I cook is prepped to eat later and I want to be able to just grab a container and eat the contents without thinking too much about it.