um. this is confusing...

Kidvicious28

lol ok... so this might sound stupid...idk if I'm just being silly or what...but, i ate a medium sized apple this morning with no skin, popped it into the microwave just to heat it up and went to look up the cals. I noticed that a raw apple is:
Apples, raw, without skin, 1 medium (2-3/4" dia) (approx 3 per lb)1 cup slices 53 cals

and....

a raw apple that has been microwaved is:
Apples, raw, without skin, cooked, microwave 1 cup, slices 95 cals

and....

a raw apple that has been boiled is:
Apples, raw, without skin, cooked, boiled 1 cup, slices 91 cals

um.... how in the world is that possible? why are the cals different? is it thinking there are other ingredients added in with the cooking preparations or am I just being stupid? lol

Kidvicious28

lol ok... so this might sound stupid...idk if I'm just being silly or what...but, i ate a medium sized apple this morning with no skin, popped it into the microwave just to heat it up and went to look up the cals. I noticed that a raw apple is:
Apples, raw, without skin, 1 medium (2-3/4" dia) (approx 3 per lb)1 cup slices 53 cals

and....

a raw apple that has been microwaved is:
Apples, raw, without skin, cooked, microwave 1 cup, slices 95 cals

and....

a raw apple that has been boiled is:
Apples, raw, without skin, cooked, boiled 1 cup, slices 91 cals

um.... how in the world is that possible? why are the cals different? is it thinking there are other ingredients added in with the cooking preparations or am I just being stupid? lol

kerrilucko

most of the nutitional info in the database is entered by users like yourself. so, the higher cal apples are likely based on recipes (wherein brown sugar, cinnamon, possibly butter, honey etc are added) do with the raw apple, no skin.

Kidvicious28

ok, so I wasn't losing my mind lol. That's what I ended up doing. Thanks! :flowerforyou:

MTGirl

Actually I checked a few online calorie counters and they have the same information - 1 small apple with the skin raw is 55 calories, 1 small microwaved apple without the skin is 95 calories. When you cook food, your body doesn't work as hard to digest it - that is one theory I've heard. The other is that when things like apples or carrots are cooked, it brings out the fructose/natural sugars and there are then more calories. But you will find that cooked food generally has more calories than raw food if you research it. Even toasted bread has slightly more calories than untoasted bread! Even before the butter, etc.

toots99

I learned in Weight Watchers that some fruits and veggies are more calories when cooked because the heat metabolizes the sugar content in the food, so therefore the calories are higher. I remember someone asked because she noticed cooked carrots (which I like) are higher in calories than raw carrots (which I don't like).

On a side note, the meeting leader said to her "You didn't get to Weight Watchers by eating carrots, so eat them and don't worry about the higher calories!" :laugh:

kerrilucko

wow, never heard that before...

not sure how much of a believer I am really... I mean nuking an apple causes it to have TWICE the number of calories? but hey, learn something new everyday!

Kidvicious28

lol toots you're funny.
I'm not toooo worried about it, but it just confused the heck out of me! I don't understand why cooked food would have more cals than raw food...those sugars are STILL in the raw foods even if you don't cook them. Just microwaving something to heat it up causes more cals???? that's strange!

slimkitty

Also - I think that after you cook the apple and it softens up a bit you can fit more apple in a cup. When it's fresh and chopped and you put it in a cup, there is still spaces of air between the chopped chunks of apple. If it is cooked and soft it will be a little more dense in the cup because it gets smushed. well, at least that's what I think and also what someone before me noted - about the sugars being broken down.

Kidvicious28

ok that makes sense...measuring it as a raw apple and measuring it as a microwaved apple. I measured mine as a raw apple. So, what should I put in my food diary??? the raw one or the microwaved one?

omid990

On a side note, the meeting leader said to her "You didn't get to Weight Watchers by eating carrots, so eat them and don't worry about the higher calories!" :laugh:

:laugh: this is true. i suppose i wouldn't worry too terribly much over 40 calories in an apple. Even if those 40 calories were to put you over, there are worst things you could do to yourself. Remember, this is an estimate, not an exact science.

tgh1914

Wait a minute. Don't we all realize that the accuracy of almost anything in the database is NOT 100%, even before factoring how it's cooked and that different users are looking at different nutritional labels. I mean I'm thinking there are so many variables that can vary the final calorie count. Even when foods are mass produced in some factory there can be slight variations in what finally ends up in the package. And that's to say nothing of what we do to the food when we get it home.

That's why I treat my target calorie intake with about a 100 calorie +/- margin for error (out of my typical 2000 daily budget). Isn't only a relative accuracy assumed here? Or am I wrong?

SHBoss1673

while it's true that the database can be off some time, I don't think that's the case here.

See, they measure apples by the cup, so when you microwave it, you boil (or steam) out some of the water, therefore the same "apple" that went in to the microwave is less then then apple that comes out (apple - water that was in the apple), therefore you need more apple to get the same measurement. If you did it by weight instead of size then it would be constant, but since you are heating the apple, you are removing water, making the apple smaller.

2 things though.

1 heating the apple in a microwave a LITTLE shouldn't make you lose much water, therefore treat it just like a raw apple.

and 2 yes, heating an apple does "process" some of the sugars in the apple making them quicker to digest in the body, better to eat an apple raw which forces the body to take longer to digest it,also; unless you don't like skin, eat the skin, got a lot of good vitamins in there, as well as lots of good fiber!