Do you weigh your food before or after cooking it?

Oktavien

cwolfman13

it depends. nutritional information on packaging is generally for the raw (uncooked weight). certain things like meats will weigh less after being cooked because they've lost water...certain things like grains will weigh more after they're cooked because they have absorbed water. This doesn't change the calorie count.

If you weigh foods cooked then select an option in the database that is for "cooked" or "grilled" or whatever as that weight and calorie count will be applicable to whatever you've cooked. If you weigh your steak or chicken or whatever cooked, but select an entry that is for raw weight, you are going to end up under reporting calories (for things like meat, etc).

Certain foods like bacon typically have nutritional information on the label provided as "cooked" or "pan fried".

I don't weigh like I used to because I've done this for a very long time (and I haven't logged in years), but typically I just weighed my meats and whatnot cooked and would select a cooked entry and sort of intuitively know from experience that if I weigh out 4 oz of chopped, cooked boneless/skinless chicken thigh that is was closer to 6 ounces raw. Given my calorie requirements though, I was never particularly anal about weighing everything down to the gram or even ounce and mostly weighed very calorie dense types of things like nuts.

Oktavien

Thank you for the detailed reply! This is immensely helpful.

tomcustombuilder

Before

Cooking usually changes the moisture content so weighing after cooking but using the stats that were meant to be uncooked, you end up under reporting the calorie content. Veggies aren’t a big deal but meats, etc can be.

Rice goes the other way since you’re ADDING water so there are exceptions. To be safe, always weigh uncooked for everything and be sure you’re entering calorie amounts for “uncooked”.

AnnPT77

Varies, but mostly before cooking, when I can.

One reason is that it's IMO usually more accurate (that moisture gain/loss thing).

The other reason is that it's usually logistically easier. If I'm making a soup or stew or casserole, how the heck do I do any kind of accurate weight after it's cooked and everything's all mixed together? I'm surely not going to trust that someone else's "vegetarian chili" has the same proportions of the same stuff as my "vegetarian chili"!

Tips:

When you're weighing something like peanut butter or a piece of cheese off a big hunk, put the peanut butter jar or whole hunk of cheese on the scale, tare (zero) the scale, then dip out or cut off the portion you want to use, and remove that portion from the scale. The negative number on the scale is the amount you used. Easy, and no extra cups/spoons to wash.

When you're making a sandwich or salad or something in a pot, put the plate/bowl/pot on the scale. (I'll use the sandwich example from here.) Tare/zero the scale. Put the bread on the plate. Note the weight of the bread. Zero the scale. Slather on mayo or butter or whatever. Note the weight. Zero the scale. Put the meat on the sandwich. Note the weight. Zero the scale. And so forth, for whatever else you're putting on the sandwich (or in your salad, or in the stew-pot, or whatever).

If you're making a multi-serving cooked thing, first weigh the empty pot/bowl/whatever, and note. (Some people make a list of weights of their common pots/bowls and tape it inside a cupboard door or something.) Then put in and note the ingredients/weights using one or both of the methods above. Cook the thing. Weigh the whole pot/bowl/whatever with the cooked food in it. Subtract the weight of the pot/bowl/whatever. That's the food weight. Put the ingredients into MFP as a recipe. In the number of servings for that recipe, put the number of grams (or whatever unit, though grams are better) into the number of servings. (If it's a big number, MFP will give you a complaining message, but let you proceed if you say you mean it.) Then, when you eat some of the food, weigh the serving you dish out for yourself, and put it in your diary as that number of servings.

paperpudding

The big point is to choose an entry that matches what you are doing

I weigh rice cooked - uncooked probably more accurate but , for me, inconvenient

since I put a cup of rice in the rice cooker and then eat only part of the final cooked amount myself.

But main thing - if you are weighing raw, use a raw entry if you are weighing cooked, use a cooked entry

Corina1143

I usually weigh before. Probably more accurate.
I do it because I'm lazy. I live alone, cook alone, eat alone 90% of the time.
So for something like rice, I might cook once, eat 5 times.
1. 1/4 pork chop, rice, broccoli.
2. 1/4 add an egg, onions, etc for stir fried rice
3. 1/2 with leftover chicken and veg for chicken rice soup, eaten 3 times.
But I only weighed once, guessed 5 times, but the TOTAL is correct.

tvm1970

With the exception of grains/rice I always weigh before.