Confused

tmcrouse

I bought a bag of the frozen great value chicken breast and it says 4oz is 110 calories. That is raw and even find that on the database as raw. But when it is cooked meat only no skin or bone the calories go up. The entire bag is 3lbs. I cooked the entire bag then ground it and it turns out to be 1lb 4ounces of ground meat. So I was like well I wonder how much is in cooked ground chicken and it says 4oz is 90 calories. So I am utterly confused as to how the calories change. I only cooked the chicken and seasoned it with salt. Want to use the 3lbs to make several meals.

gfergus1

Some of the fat and oil melts off when you cook the chicken. Cooking the chicken also basically changes the protein conformations inside of the meat, so it's somewhat of a different substance than when the chicken is raw, so your body digests it differently. Ultimately... I would go with whatever the calorie count is for a cooked portion, but, to be honest... 10 or 20 calories is not going to make a huge difference, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

WolffEarl

When you looked up the values for cooked, ground chicken did it specify if it was extra lean? That can make a difference. Lean ground chicken for 100 g is about 160 calories. 100 g is close to 4 oz, just under. Cooked vs uncooked goes up b/c it loses some water normally so would be surprised if the value of calories goes down, unless the fat is trimmed off.