Weighing your food..

msech

Okay so my question is should I weigh my food before I cook it? Also should I measure out my food before I cook it? The reason I ask is because I went to cook me some cabbage, I measured it out before I cooked it to have exactly three 1 cup servings but after I cooked it I measured it out again and only got 2 servings.

rileysowner

Weight before cooking.

NeuroticVirgo

You just have to do a little math. Everything tends to shrink after you cook it (it loses water (moister), or meats lose fat etc).

Take what you get afterwards and divide it by 3, and that's how much each person should get for 1 serving.

I learned that the hard way, I was weighing everything after cooking and couldn't figure out why a bag of veggies that says it had 8 servings would only have 4 servings etc. (and it was making me mad too!). But its because most servings are "uncooked" (which is dumb). So same thing on meats. When you go to eat chicken, and the package says 130 calories for 4 oz...that's 4 oz raw, not cooked. So weigh it before you cook it.

Good luck!

PJS323

Fresh foods that don't require cooking I measure out. Cooked foods I measure after they are done cooking.

sharleengc

I asked the same thing not long ago. You should weigh it before you cook it. (for example: if you order a lb of meat from the deli, it's weighed raw). If there is a difference most packages or containers will say what the precooked size is (might be a cup) and the post cooked size may be a 3/4 of a cup. While i know veggies don't usually come with a package, you can usually check various sites as they may be able to tell you specifically. Or sometimes if I want something that's not prepackaged, I compare it to one that is. This works with Lettuce, beans, even peppers sometimes. It at least gives me a a jumping off point.

TheGoblinRoad

Okay so my question is should I weigh my food before I cook it? Also should I measure out my food before I cook it? The reason I ask is because I went to cook me some cabbage, I measured it out before I cooked it to have exactly three 1 cup servings but after I cooked it I measured it out again and only got 2 servings.

I wouldn't worry about green vegetables, myself. No one ever gained weight on cabbage, far as I know. If you feel weighing food's the way to go, I'd personally focus on food that has more calories.

wolfchild59

Always weigh before cooking to get accurate calorie values for the amount being used.

Then, to accurately divide after cooking, weigh again and divide whatever that amount is by however many servings you need from it.

e.g. A serving size is 100 grams and you're cooking for four. So you'd weigh out 400 grams of it and then cook it. After cooking, to divide it perfectly evenly you put it back on the scale. Due to the moisture lost during cooking you now have 300 grams, so each person would get 75 grams of the item.

Dormouse85

I would say have as much cabbage, other veggies and fruit as you want. Save your concern and weighing for the higher calorie stuff. Having said that I weigh my pasta/rice before cooking (75g each portion) and my meat after cooking. Go figure! :-)

Papillon22

I weigh everything after cooking, because that's what's entering your body, especially things like pasta and rice. I'm not sure why some people do the opposite, it doesn't make sense to me.

dls06

When I make my recipes I always enter ingredients not cooked. When I have a problem with serving size after cooked I adjust the number of servings in my recipes to the correct number. You always have to account for the shrinkage that occurs in cooking. Especially when it comes to vegetable. The nutritional value of 1 cup of cabbage will be the same when it is cooked. But the amount will be different. If you have a cup raw you will not have a cup cooked. Therefore a cup cooked is more calories then a cup raw.

Pandorian

I weigh everything after cooking, because that's what's entering your body, especially things like pasta and rice. I'm not sure why some people do the opposite, it doesn't make sense to me.

Go to a restaurant to order a burger, they VERY clearly state that the 1/2 lb weight of the burger you're ordering refers to PRE-COOKED or RAW weight, because of the moisture loss during the cooking process. For something like steak where you may like yours blood-rare and I may take mine well-done the only way for us to get the "Same" weight from the same piece of steak is to weigh it before cooking enter that in the food journal, cook to how you like it and eat. Pasta is similar, you may like yours Al Dente (that's the still a bit of a snap to it isn't it?) and I might like mine so thoroughly cooked it is barely holding structure, they'll absorb different amounts of water during the cooking process so weight DRY for pasta is how to measure your servings