Meat Question

Lonewolf1507

Hi All

When do you calculate calories for meat, raw or cooked weight?

I made some lamb kebabs this evening for dinner, 154 g of raw meet went under the grill but 92 g went on the plate. The calorie difference is 444 in it's raw weight or 265 at it's cooked weight, quite a difference to the overall meal value, depending on how you cook means that calculating the final weight would be impossible stir fries, pies or curries.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Andy

HappilyLifts

Good question! Sorry I don't know the answer, but I often wonder myself. I remember wondering the same when doing Weightwatchers and I think the general answer was to weigh after cooking because the meat can lose some water and fat in the cooking process (unless roasting!).

mmapags

Used the coooked weight. That is what you end up eating.

Lonewolf1507

That's what I am thinking :happy:

ToughTulip

Raw

Most labels will say the nutrition facts then 4 ounces raw meat as the serving

psv1012

Use the cooked weight

xoAmyxo

I do mine raw.

sarahsummers12

I was always told use the raw weight... so who knows...lol

onedayillbeamilf

I do raw.

GemskiB

I do all my weights raw and include cooking agents such as oil, I measure it all. I figure that with lean meat the lost its going to lose is water :-) but that is just my opinion!

PLUMSGRL

The nutritional guidelines found on packaged meats are calculated when the products are in their raw state.
The USDA also calculates it's information by the raw state (uncooked).

geebusuk

Ideally you will have details for both.

The macro ratio will often change depending on how you cook - obviously there is likely to be a big difference in fat content between grilling it and deep frying it.

I presume protein and carb levels are less likely to be affected.

I tend to use pretty low fat meats when being 'good', so generally just leave the details as they were if I don't have 'cooked' information.

letjog

i boil my chicken so just go with the raw as boiling doesn't change the energy content. if cooking another way, i imagine you add fat and so should log the weight of it roasted so the fat is included... :S

geebusuk

Oh and in some meats it can be just water that's lost - so while they weigh less, the nutritional value is the same.

HeatherSanto

I was just looking at this same topic today and I've seen both answers. Its hard to tell because if you enter into MFP it says baked or not so it all looks like final weights. Today I was doing salmon, I saw that 4 oz salmon is 3 cooked so I looked for 3 oz. I swear that there is not a straight answer because a lot depends on how the person calculated it when they did the darn stats.

llkilgore

I usually log meat raw if I can weigh individual servings before they're cooked, or after cooking if it's something like a turkey or pork loin roast that needs to be sliced after it comes out of the oven. Either way, it's important to use the right database entry - raw for raw or cooked for cooked.

I agree with Alauniira about "the darn stats," which is why I prefer to log the meat raw if it's convenient to do so. There's been less manipulation at that point.

Lonewolf1507

Thank you guys for replying, looks like raw gets the majority vote, even though when grilling a certain amount of fat is going to be lost as well.

Andy