How do you count your chickens before they roost.

Fattyohfat
Fattyohfat Posts: 54 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I love chicken as my protein. But I wonder if I am counting it correctly for my records. I usually cook the chicken and then weigh it, eat it, and weigh the bones and subtract that from the original number. How do you count your chicken or other meats?

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,934 Member
    If you count your chicken that way, you need to be sure you're using a cooked chicken entry.

    Personally, I think using a raw chicken entry is more accurate: depending on how long you cook something it will lose more or less moisture, influencing the final weight. But then you need to weigh the chicken raw (and subtract the weight from the bones).
  • Fattyohfat
    Fattyohfat Posts: 54 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    If you count your chicken that way, you need to be sure you're using a cooked chicken entry.

    Personally, I think using a raw chicken entry is more accurate: depending on how long you cook something it will lose more or less moisture, influencing the final weight. But then you need to weigh the chicken raw (and subtract the weight from the bones).

    Thank you. That was my thoughts as well. I appreciate your answer and shall adjust.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,283 Member
    Weigh it raw. Water is lost in cooking however some chicken you buy has been shot up with water. The main thing is to be consistent on how you do it.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,055 Member
    edited August 2023
    Fattyohfat wrote: »
    So I love chicken as my protein. But I wonder if I am counting it correctly for my records. I usually cook the chicken and then weigh it, eat it, and weigh the bones and subtract that from the original number. How do you count your chicken or other meats?

    Yes, this is exactly how I do it, using a cooked entry from the USDA database. If boneless and skinless chicken is going into a recipe, I will use a raw entry in the recipe builder.

    Here's my standard answer about finding accurate entries in the MFP database, which happens to have an example for cooked chicken breast.

    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. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.

    To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.

    https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

    Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that's what MFP used to pull in entries.

    For cooked chicken breast: "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.

    For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct. Note: scanning is mostly only available with Premium these days.)

Categories