Question

Jag13760

When measuring food, do you measure it before or after cooking? For example, if I want rice, do I measure a cup before or after its cooked?

Simonscat

I measure before...But for rice and pasta I use scales

MzBug

It depends on what you are cooking. Most nutritional values are given on packages as pre cooking. Check to make sure! In the case of rice/pasta you would want to weigh it before cooking. Generally 2oz of pasta before cooking gives you 1 cup cooked. That is actually a lot of pasta! Sometimes packaged foods will give you 2 values, one for just the package contents, the other for "cooked as directed". Cooking in plain water will not give you more calories, but using a broth, milk, oils or other addatives will, and you would need to get out the caluclator to add the individual components calories together to get a total value.