Should I weigh food raw or cooked?

pdank311

I'd prob throw myself into traffic if 2oz pasta for 200 cal was based off of cooked weight .

Raw.


If you are cooking for two weigh it twice. Once for cals(raw) , once for portioning for plating(cooked).

jasonmh630

Weigh your food raw.

50g of pasta is still 50g of actual pasta even after it's cooked... It's just soaked up some of the water.

lemurcat12

I weigh my meats after they are cooked. You can lose one to two ounces when you cook something, even more when it's beef and you cook it well done. When I am eating 7 ounces of chicken breast, I am not going to be happy if I weigh it after cooking and find it only weighs 5 ounces, but I am logging the calories of a 7 ounce chicken breast. I am very selfish about my food! I like it too much to waste any calories.

If you use an entry for raw chicken (and the package information IS normally for raw), you are underestimating what you eat if you use the weight after cooking.

If you use a cooked entry there shouldn't be much difference, but if so (and using your numbers) the calories for 7 oz raw should be identical to those for 5 oz cooked.

ChrisManch

It depends what you are looking up.

eg. If you look up "Rice" then that would be the dry weight. If you looked up "Boiled Rice" or "Fried Rice" then it would be AFTER cooking.

Generally the nutritional information is given for the unprepared food unless stated otherwise.

tiggsnanny

It's all a bit confusing for me lol i'm not the brightest button in the box :laugh:

janiceclark08

I weigh most of my food cooked, if my meat is grilled I look up chicken breast grilled, or chicken breast skinless baked, theiy have a large variety of cooked items on my fitness pal calorie counter. I dont eat pasta usually but the pasta salad I purchase says on the box prepared calorie count also, most of them have both.

brookechooka89

I have a high school ratio math test question for you.

Q.1.: If I have 1.8kg of raw roast meat

...then cook it

The roast meat is now 1.2kg of cooked roast meat.

If I measure 200g of cooked roast meat, what did it weigh raw?

What is the calculation?

A: (1800 / 1200) x 200 = 300

It's all well and good to weigh raw food, but when you're cooking roast meats, it's hard to feel like you're not just guessing / over estimating / under estimating.

I like to eat what's on my plate without feeling guilty that I've under calculated. I'm also a bit OCD when weighing so I like to be fairly close to the mark.

I hope this has helped atleast 1 person out there

Kalikel

If am just baking, frying, whathaveyou, I use the cooked weight. I like to log what I actually eat if I can. If it's going to get inextricably tangled with other ingredients, I'll log the raw version.

no_day_but_2day

hbrittingham wrote: »

I weigh my meats after they are cooked. You can lose one to two ounces when you cook something, even more when it's beef and you cook it well done. When I am eating 7 ounces of chicken breast, I am not going to be happy if I weigh it after cooking and find it only weighs 5 ounces, but I am logging the calories of a 7 ounce chicken breast. I am very selfish about my food! I like it too much to waste any calories.

The thing is, you're actually eating 7oz of chicken breast. I just found this out. UNLESS you log it as 5oz of cooked chicken breast. BUT, if you log it as a generic chicken breast, raw you calories will be under than what you're actually eating.