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How and why to use a digital food scale

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Replies

  • Posts: 1 Member
    i use a scale and i find that it is the easiest way to make sure i am getting the exact serving size, i think that helped my diet a lot!
  • Posts: 14,776 Member
    Bump.
  • Posts: 14,776 Member
    I like this post. Giving it a bump for others :drinker:
  • Posts: 1,055 Member
    edited October 2016
    For those who are resisting purchasing a food scale--I did too for quite a while, but I took the plunge, and I actually enjoy using it. It's really no more difficult than before, but I love the added precision. I did always hate those packages that say one serving of chips is 1/10 of the bag, or pieces of chocolate – – when there are 14 servings of random-sized pieces, so that a serving is difficult to guess accurately. So now I just throw those on the scale, measure in grams, and I know exactly how much I'm eating.

    I also enjoy knowing the total number of calories in my homemade meals. I weigh and add up the individual ingredients first, then bake the dish and either use a measuring cup to measure out things like chili, or for things like shepherds pie, I simply make score marks with a knife to divide the dish into, say, 8 servings, then divide the total calories I had weighed out by the 8 servings. The servings could be further weighed on the scale, but I have not used it for this.

    The scale is also great for measuring out high calorie items like cheese. I never felt like I could accurately measure out 1/4 cup of grated cheese! Now I just weigh it out, and I know exactly how much I'm eating or using in a recipe.

    One tip--usually you can find the items in the database listed in units of 100g or 1g (but do an initial check that the item has been entered correctly). Most often I'll choose the 1g option, so then when I'm weighing cheese, for example, the 40g of cheese just goes into the database as 40 servings of 1 g. No calculations needed!

    Again, if you're hesitant, just do it! It just might make your life easier, not harder! I got mine from Amazon for $15.
  • Posts: 82 Member
    Is it ok to use the ounces to measure my food? I'm following a good plan and everything is in ounces so I'm using the scale to measure that way. Thanks for the post!!
  • Posts: 2,171 Member
    @merbear787 Yes, if your scale reads in ounces , particularly to the 0.1 oz it is fine to use ounces.
  • Posts: 82 Member
    @tomteboda thanks! ☺️
  • Posts: 14,776 Member
    Don't mind me. Just giving some holiday bumps.
  • Posts: 1,787 Member
    edited January 2017
    debrag12 wrote: »

    I weight my liquids on the scale in ml.

    That's one thing I hate about the database most things are in oz and even then a UK oz is different to an USA oz. Am I missing something is there a way to filter out oz entry's? Saying that I don't use many liquids.

    Just so you know, milliliters are a volume measurement, not a weight measurement. While most digital scales offer ml as a reading-unit, they do so on the assumption that 1ml = 1g -- which is only true for plain water at labaratory room temp (74F). Liquids other than water do not have the same ml-to-gram conversion ratio, and even water at higher or lower temps will be off.

    Also, the UK and US differ in their definitions of fluid ounces, not ounces by weight. MFP's database ounces are weighted ounces, not fluid -- they are the same (28 grams) in the US, the UK, and everywhere. This is actually why weighing food is more accurate than measuring, as a weighed ounce is always and forever 28g while a fluid ounce is different depending on your country, how your specific measuring cups are calibrated, and how you pack them.
  • Posts: 27 Member
    Great advice!

    Sometimes instead of putting the bowl or plate on, then zeroing it, I'll put the container of food I'm about to eat on there and zero that out. Then I scoop out what I want until I get to the appropriate (negative) grams.

    For example, I love cottage cheese and I buy the big one from Costco. When I go to get a serving, 117g, I put the whole container on the scale, hit zero, and then start scooping until the scale reads -117g. ...

    :flowerforyou:

    This is brilliant! It never occurred to me. I think you've made my measuring life SO much easier
  • Posts: 35 Member
    You can buy great ones on Ebay and Wish for under $10! Mine has the on/reset button and the weight in grams displayed. I think it was about $6 with $3 shipping to Australia. Just google "cheap digital kitchen scale" and you should be able to find it! It's white and made from plastic for easy clean-up. Easily my favourite kitchen tool, especially for meal prepping! (I just weigh the whole batch and divide it by the number of meals according to the ingredient...for example 600 g of carrots divided by 5 'snacks' gives me the grams for the day's total amount.)
  • Posts: 879 Member
    Bump. . cause its awesome.
  • Posts: 1,248 Member
    After a year of losing 17 lbs eyeballing and guessing, today I bit the bullet and now own a scale!!!

    This is an awesome post, and I thank you very much.
  • Posts: 172 Member
    I'm losing on a £3 ($4) manual scale. There is absolutely no need to pay so much for a scale.
  • Posts: 245 Member
    Another small tip:

    One thing I do if my plate is too big and blocks the display is place a small bowl on the scale and put my plate on top of that...it raises it up high enough that I can see the display with no problem.
  • Posts: 563 Member
    My scale automatically zeros the plate when you turn it on, if you place the plate on first. so if I just want to add sauce or cheese to something, I put the loaded plate on the scale, then turn it on (it will read zero), then I just get the weight of the bit I add.

    An easy twist on the "tare" thing.
  • Posts: 201 Member
    klrenn wrote: »
    Another small tip:

    One thing I do if my plate is too big and blocks the display is place a small bowl on the scale and put my plate on top of that...it raises it up high enough that I can see the display with no problem.

    This is a game changer. Spectacular.
  • Posts: 1,248 Member
    Awesome tips!!!
    Thank you!
  • Posts: 14,776 Member
    227115-Happy-New-Year-Cat.gif
  • Posts: 14,776 Member
    I recognize this is an old post, but I've always found it useful. Giving it a bump.
  • Posts: 76 Member
    I am looking for a bluetooth scale if MFP will connect with it...anyone know if this is possible or if they are working on such so we don't have to log everything manually?
  • Posts: 16,011 Member
    I am looking for a bluetooth scale if MFP will connect with it...anyone know if this is possible or if they are working on such so we don't have to log everything manually?

    Wow, did you revive every thread that ever talked about types of food scales???

    I really don't know how what you are looking for would work. Either you would have to tell the scale what the food is or tell MFP what the food is. And because entries in the database are user entered, there is no common architecture to how they are named. How would the scale be able to search through all the similar or dupe entries and pick the right one? I often have a tough time choosing the right entry out of several similar ones myself!
This discussion has been closed.