Weighing meat, before and after cooking

SteampunkSongbird

I know to weigh dry things like pasta and rice etc. before cooking, as the post-cooking gain in those is just water, but it just occurred to me that I'm not really sure about meat! Weighing after cooking usually shows a fairly significant difference, for example I buy a peppered grill steak that weighs about 170g before cooking, then once cooked it can weigh as little as 120g, and I don't know which would be the correct weight to log. While cooking (I always grill meats) a lot of fat runs out into the grill tray, is the loss of weight purely fat, or is there water loss? Some meat things obviously shrink a bit in size when cooking, like beef, although I'm not sure why. It's probably obvious and I'm just being a dunce, but please assisst, lol.

martinel2099

I'd highly recommend sticking with the before cooked measurement but you can sometimes find the cooked entries. Generally speaking when I grill a steak I just weigh it before hand and remember which one it was. That's easy for since I do the grilling and pick the biggest one :P

Francl27

Weigh it raw when possible, cooked when not, just use the correct entries.

jasonmh630

Weigh it raw when possible, cooked when not, just use the correct entries.

This^^^

Chezzie84

TBH if it's meat that is going into something ie Bolognese or Stew I weigh raw. If it is a portion, I weigh cooked.

SteampunkSongbird

Thanks all. The packaging and mfp entry says that a portion (1 steak) is approx. 131g once grilled and gives the nutritional values for that, so I'll log it as that, even though it weighed more than that raw and less once cooked (it only weighed 114g after cooking.)

That's me done for the day anyway with 200 cals to spare, so even if it's not quite accurate, I still won't be over my calorie limit. :-)

ana3067

As I was told on another forum when I asked this question, just be consistent. For me, I will weigh things raw and cooked, but I consistently use the correct nutritional information for how I am weighing it. If I make a casserole I will obviously weigh things raw to create the recipe, thus use the raw nutritional information. If I'm making a large piece of salmon, I will weigh out whatever amount I want once I've cooked it and use the cooked nutritional information.

I've been all over the place for the last 2.5 months in what weighing method I use, but I've always consistently used the correct nutritional information. Averaging out about 1950-2000 calories this whole time, I've still been losing weight as estimated (actually was losing a bit more than estimated, mostly because I probably can eat closer to 2100 for my goals)

simplydelish2

I've always been told by nutritionists to weigh the food in the state you are going to eat it. The exception, as you mentioned is pasta, which is always weighed dry.

With meat, cooked veggies, etc. I use the cooked weight/measurement.

erinelizabeth882

People talk about using the correct nutritional information. For my meat and fish, I usually buy individually frozen pieces in a bag and use the scanner option to put in the nutritional info. How do I determine if the info on the bag is cooked or raw?

avskk

Unless the package specifies otherwise, you should assume the nutritional values given are for uncooked food. This holds for meat, grains, broths, etc.

corgicake

This is why there are nutrition numbers for raw and cooked meat - the more cooking, the more shrinkage. They probably had to assume meat was well done for the sake of consistency and it may be better to use uncooked weights if you don't cook it well done yourself.

KaneNLN

Never ever weighed anything raw.. always cooked for me apart from like pasta