Weighing food?

mistress8956

When weighing meat do u u weigh it cooked or raw? Veggies steamed or raw? Does it make a difference?

ChrisS30V

I weigh both raw, I've never noticed enough of a difference to have a meaningful impact one way or the other.

geebusuk

Often the calorie values will be specify one or the other and when they show both, often there is quite a difference.
With meat, generally it will have lost some water and possibly fat - so it'll be higher in protein and lower in fat per 100g.
Stuff like Pasta and rice will be vastly different per weight because it soaks up a lot of water.

_jayciemarie_

I was told to weigh them raw.

Transformer711

I weigh meat cooked. Either way, I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference.

livingleanlivingclean

I weigh everything raw....

The cooking time and method can effect the weight of the cooked meat, so that tends to be really innacurate.

ClementineGeorg

I weight all ingredients raw.

I only weight recipies I enter with their weight (like instead of entering 4 servings, I enter 1 serving for each 100 grams of that recipie, to be able to eat a more or less big portion depending on the calories available that day).

burtnyks

I do everything raw as well.

chezjuan

I typically weigh raw, unless I forget or am not the cook, but it doesn't really matter as long as you use an entry in the MFP database that matches how you weigh it. For example, you will find entries for boneless, skinless, chicken breast (raw) and boneless, skinless, chicken breast (roasted). I also find that using the USDA database entries provides the most accurate information.

Just don't use the raw weight with the cooked entry or vice-versa as you will then have an inaccurate count.

Edit to fix typo.

tigersword

Weigh it raw, it's the only way to know for sure. 100g of raw beef can weigh as little as 50g after cooking, due to loss of water. That means if you weigh it cooked, you'll be recording half the calories it actually has.

This is why all restaurant commercials and menus contain the *precooked weight disclaimer when they mention the size of a burger, or steak, or any menu item, because most foods shrink upon cooking due to water loss

Dry foods also gain weight, which gives the opposite problem. For instance, 100g of spaghetti tends to weigh about 200g after cooking. 100g of rice can weigh close to 300g cooked.

TL:DR
Cooking changes the weight of the food without significantly impacting the calorie count, so always weigh raw when possible.

randomtai

I do everything raw as well.

Giggity.

tigersword

I do everything raw as well.