Salad measurement

Femmigirlz

When logging salad, such as bagged mixed green salad and it says one cup equals X amount of calories how much are they talking about.

Do they mean to weigh a one cup measuring cup full?

Are they saying to put it on a scale and weigh out 8 ounces?

Can anyone please help, I think I must be logging it wrong.

BarbaraHelen2013

And herein lies the perennial issue with the cup and volume based system of measuring!

I would look for a database entry in grams, weigh everything and throw your cups in the bin!

If you’re having this issue with salad greens, which are so low calorie that any discrepancies are pretty much immaterial, just imagine how ridiculous and inaccurate the cup system would be when measuring food with significant calories!

snowflake954

I agree with Barbara. Salad is low cal--it's the dressing you've got to worry about. I weigh everything in grams. It's precise. I came from cups, oz, etc, and it was hard when I moved to Europe, but once you get it, it's so much easier.

If you really can't, or don't want to, I'd put my plate or bowl on the scale--tare it out to 0 and then put my salad on it and you can see how many oz it is. Then put on your dressing and you can see how much it is.

lemurcat2

I'm not really sure what the issue is. I agree with the posters above that weight is generally more accurate than volume measurements (except for liquids, perhaps), but with greens -- and it seems like by salad you just mean greens or something in a bag? -- it's low cal and you can probably eyeball it.
Obviously it doesn't include dressing or higher cal stuff you might put on a salad and any entry you may have found for "salad" is inherently suspicious and should not be used.

Femmigirlz wrote: »

When logging salad, such as bagged mixed green salad and it says one cup equals X amount of calories how much are they talking about.

Do they mean to weigh a one cup measuring cup full?

Are they saying to put it on a scale and weigh out 8 ounces?

Can anyone please help, I think I must be logging it wrong.

If you are using the measurement on the bag, go with what it says (some bagged salads are for the whole package or half of one and do include higher cal components).

If it's just a bag of greens, and in the US, it should give both a cup measure and a weight (gram) measure. Use either, assuming it's low cal. And yes, a cup means a cup. (To be clear, both oz and grams are weight measurements and both are perfectly good, but most US packaging does use grams and not oz, and grams are easier IMO because you will be able to find 100 g entries which makes the conversion much easier.)

I am not sure where you are getting 8 oz, except that FOR WATER 8 fluid oz = a cup. That is meaningless for anything but water; you cannot convert a one cup of veg to 8 oz. Instead, look up the proper weight measurement on the USDA site (or learn to recognize the good entries at MFP) or use what is on the package if you have package information (which will generally be in grams, not oz).

To make this difference clear, one cup of raw spinach is about 30 g and 7 calories (it seems like the usual measure is not a particularly packed cup, and of course that's one of the issues with cups as measurements). 8 oz of raw spinach is about 227 grams, or about 52 cal. A cup is a quite small serving of greens, IMO, but 8 oz is quite large -- I suspect that is what is confusing you.

DancingMoosie

For salad, a cup is a volume measurement(use a measuring cup) or it gives the serving in grams(weigh grams on a scale).

HoneyBadger302

Salad greens I honestly just eyeball - one of the only things I do that with (other than a few other very low cal/higher fiber veggies) since the differences are immaterial almost. Everything that goes ON said salad, however, gets weighed as it goes on.

If at all possible I will hunt down a weight measurement rather than a volume measurement - sometimes this takes some digging, but sometimes the drop down (on the mobile app) has a grams option in there if you check.