Nutritional value of chicken (the mind boggles)...

Numptcakes

Please, please, PLEASE can somebody settle this before my head explodes!

I have a chicken breast. A simple chicken breast - skinless, boneless and destined for the grill/crockpot.

If I was to weigh the meat raw and log it as 'chicken breast, meat only, raw' then cook it up, would that logged data be incorrect?
Or if I was to weigh the meat raw, cook it up, then log it as 'chicken breast, meat only, roasted/grilled' using the RAW weight?
Or if I was to cook it up first then weigh and log the end product?


Should I feed it to the dog and just save myself the bother?

Mokey41

Guideline is to weight meat raw and use those calories. Cooking adds too many variables so go with your first option.

Numptcakes

Cool, that's one more for weighing it and logging it raw. Just don't want to be messing up my calorie count.

Any more for any more?

yarwell

Just be consistent - if you weigh raw, use a raw calorie value. Weigh cooked (why would you do that) then you need a cooked calorie value.

peuglow

I weigh all my chicken cooked, because I buy them skin on with the ribs (split ribs). The chicken is more tender, flavorful, but you cannot weigh it raw because of the ribs and skin.

IMO, the difference in calories due to weight loss is rather small to worry. Just be consistent.

Numptcakes

Okay. Consistency is key - got it!

I suppose what has me confused is how the values change depending on the cooking method. Grilling vs roasting, for example. Grilling has less calories and fat than roasting - am I right? So if I was to log raw then roast it, would I not be cheating myself?

yarwell

grilling has the potential to let the fat drip off through the grill I guess, whereas roasted whole the skin will hold more fat in.

You might be overthinking this ;-)

mmapags

Just checked both in the database and the difference is 10 calories lower grilled than raw for a 4 oz chicken breast. Is this even worth worrying about? The daily margin of error for most of us is probably 10X that. Don't trip yourself up worrying about the little stuff.

DavPul

Just checked both in the database and the difference is 10 calories lower grilled than raw for a 4 oz chicken breast. Is this even worth worrying about? The daily margin of error for most of us is probably 10X that. Don't trip yourself up worrying about the little stuff.

THIS

magj0y

Log it raw. You're not frying it, so not a big deal

Numptcakes

Obsession is part and parcel of illness, unfortunately. Okay, lets phrase it another way. Forget what I should do - what do YOU guys do?

mmapags

Obsession is part and parcel of illness, unfortunately. Okay, lets phrase it another way. Forget what I should do - what do YOU guys do?

I hear you girl and didn't realize that until I took a look at your profile. I just get it close enough and figure it'll all come out in the wash. I usually look up the cooked version because that can have some variables that the raw version doesn't. Like the grilled chicken breast was 10 cals less than the raw as likely what liitle fat is present get's rendered out. Within reason, it's just not that critical.

wolfchild59

Meat should always be weighed raw. This is done because you lose water and liquids during the cooking that don’t remove any calories from the meat.

And every time you cook a piece of meat, even if it weighs the same prior to cooking, it may weigh different amounts after cooking due to the amount of time it was cooked and how much moisture it lost.

Using a 4 ounce boneless, skinless, chicken breast as an example. Weigh it prior to cooking and you have 4 ounces of meat that total 120 calories.

Outcome 1 - Cook it just to temp, where it’s still moist and juicy inside and it may now weigh around 3.5 ounces after being cooked, but it will still be 120 calories.
Outcome 2 - Overcook it, to where it’s dry inside because it cooked too long and it may now weigh around 3 ounces after being cooked, but it will still be 120 calories.

Now, if you weighed it after cooking, using the raw entry, you’d be entering 105 calories for Outcome 1 and 90 calories for Outcome 2. Both fewer calories than you are consuming.

Or, if you used one of the entries in the MFP database for cooked chicken, you could be entering 113.8 calories for Outcome 1 and 97.5 calories for Outcome 2. Or maybe 175 calories for Outcome 1 and 150 calories for Outcome 2. Or you could even end up with 105 calories for Outcome 1 and 90 calories for Outcome 2. All from just different entries of cooked boneless, skinless, chicken breast entries on MFP.

The only time you should ever weigh food cooked is A. for portioning purposes (you weighed 20oz of raw chicken, cut it up and cooked it all together, so you can divide the cooked weight by 5 and portion it into 4 equal servings). B. If you have bought pre-packaged food that is already cooked and the weight on the package corresponds directly to that product.

I worked in a professional kitchen environment for almost five years. There’s a reason there’s fine print on any menu selling a 1/4 pound burger that says that’s it’s pre-cooked weight and that people don’t go to a steakhouse and order a 12 ounce steak and think that means that they are getting 12 ounces on their plate when it’s served.

Always weigh raw.

eabradfo

what I do is weigh it raw. I only grill chicken, but you made a good point about roasting it so if I roasted it, I'd weigh in after it was cooked.

NikkiSixGuns

Raw weight. I typically don't add anything when I cook (like oil or sauces) so this works well for me. If I do add sauce it's after it's cooked and I measure/weigh the sauce separately.

Good luck!

SideSteel

What I do is stand on the scale with the cooked chicken sitting on the back of the toilet in arms reach. Then I eat the chicken, look at the scale, and subtract my bodyweight.



Joking aside I weigh it raw.

Numptcakes

Thanks SO much for all your input, ladies and gentlemen. I feel a lot more confident about it now

mmapags

Thanks SO much for all your input, ladies and gentlemen. I feel a lot more confident about it now

Glad you responses helpful and best wishes as you make progress!! :flowerforyou:

Numptcakes

I'm really sorry to bump this again because the answers I already have are fantastic - I just need further input to settle the demon in my brain. Yes I am over thinking it but as many of you probably know, eating disorder = preoccupation with food. Sucks - but it is what it is.

Back to this chicken breast. Majority say weigh raw - got it. But do I weigh raw and log 'raw', or weigh raw and log 'cooked'?

See my dilemma here: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268401242

100g raw as sold is 120 calories. A typical grilled breast of 130g is 180 calories. If you were to calculate the raw caloric value, however, it should be 156 calories for 130g. So where did that extra 24 calories come from? Or do you think that grilled breast had been weighed after being cooked?

Once again, I'm sorry for making a big deal of this. Any further input would be greatly appreciated

juncture

I'm really sorry to bump this again because the answers I already have are fantastic - I just need further input to settle the demon in my brain. Yes I am over thinking it but as many of you probably know, eating disorder = preoccupation with food. Sucks - but it is what it is.

Back to this chicken breast. Majority say weigh raw - got it. But do I weigh raw and log 'raw', or weigh raw and log 'cooked'?

See my dilemma here: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268401242

100g raw as sold is 120 calories. A typical grilled breast of 130g is 180 calories. If you were to calculate the raw caloric value, however, it should be 156 calories for 130g. So where did that extra 24 calories come from? Or do you think that grilled breast had been weighed after being cooked?

Once again, I'm sorry for making a big deal of this. Any further input would be greatly appreciated

When you grill the chicken breast you are losing some of the weight from the liquid coming out of the chicken, this liquid doesn't have any significant calorific value, if you scroll up in this thread there was a poster who explained it much better than me but say you take your 100g of raw chicken and it's 120 calories when you've finished cooking it it might be say 80g (making numbers up here because I don't know how much liquid is lost) but it will still be 120 calories worth of chicken.

With the example you've used the grilled breast of 130g being 180 calories if you work back based on the raw calories what they're saying is they expect the raw chicken breast to be about 150g in weight (which would be the 180 calories) but in the grilling process you're losing 20g of weight.

Hope this makes sense, I always weigh my meat raw and then if I use any oil or other fat in the cooking process I log that separately

yksdoris

I'm really sorry to bump this again because the answers I already have are fantastic - I just need further input to settle the demon in my brain. Yes I am over thinking it but as many of you probably know, eating disorder = preoccupation with food. Sucks - but it is what it is.

Back to this chicken breast. Majority say weigh raw - got it. But do I weigh raw and log 'raw', or weigh raw and log 'cooked'?

See my dilemma here: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268401242

100g raw as sold is 120 calories. A typical grilled breast of 130g is 180 calories. If you were to calculate the raw caloric value, however, it should be 156 calories for 130g. So where did that extra 24 calories come from? Or do you think that grilled breast had been weighed after being cooked?

Once again, I'm sorry for making a big deal of this. Any further input would be greatly appreciated

No worries, we all obsess sometimes.

There may be 2 causes for the grilled meat to be higher in calories: one has already been mentioned: it loses water but not calories when it's cooked, so a grilled piece of chicken will weigh less than the raw piece but still have the same amount of calories.

The 2nd reason is that even if it's not much, most people use *some* marinade or oil for the grilling.

Hearts_2015

I log it the way I plan to eat it, the size reduces when cooking because of water and other added items in chicken, so I weight it after.

Not everyone agrees, seems to be 2 camps on this. I pretty much go by the pkg. I got the meat/protein out of.

Laddiegirl

I log the raw weight of my chicken before I cook it. I obsessed over the difference too when I first started but after awhile I found I prefer to log the weight of raw meat, plus any marinades or add-ins to get a more accurate calorie content than choosing a generic listing for "grilled lemon garlic chicken", or what have you because I don't know how much oil, ect that that particular recipe used and I may use less or more.

And if there is something I prepare often the same way, I create a recipe for it because the ingredients/calorie content is static and its easier to do that. But only on things that have a specific recipe that I don't fuss with in any calorie altering way.

msbunnie68

Hi... this is the way I have worked it out to stop from frying my own brain cells.

I log my meats as raw and weigh them raw AFTER I have removed skin/fat etc but leave bones in if that is the cut. I figure the weight the bone adds (and hence the calories) offset any calories gained thru the fats/oils in the marrows leaching thru the meat (hence the tenderness of bony cuts). If I use anything to cook it eg. oils/sauces, whatever I log them separately as well. If it is a dish I think I will eat often I will save it as a my meal or a recipe. (I have found if you use my meal then if the meat is a different weight you can just alter the weight component in your diary).

I am a really controlling personality type so this is the only way I can do this without it doing my head in and I start imagining unlogged calories hiding behind the lettuce.

Hope this helps x

Mads1997

I do whatever is easiest at the time of preparing meal. If I am cooking chicken in the oven I will weigh it after it's cooked same with steak in the frypan. If I am adding chicken to a caserole or something messy like that I weight it raw.

Gramps251

Obsession is part and parcel of illness, unfortunately. Okay, lets phrase it another way. Forget what I should do - what do YOU guys do?

I weigh my chicken (all meat) cooked.

mulderpf

Weigh everything raw. Once you start cooking it, it adds too many variables to be accurate. (The heat you are cooking it on can cause more or less water weight to cook off, still the same calories, but different end result, but always the same starting result).

Weigh everything RAW (chicken, rice, pasta, veggies) for the most accurate results.

As for the question of the Tesco example, as you cook chicken, some water disappears, that's why cooked weight is lower for the same amount of calories (e.g. in their example, 130g of cooked chicken has the same calorie value as 150g of raw chicken - that's because 20g of water evaporated during cooking). BUT, look at the wording too, specifically the word TYPICAL - if you cook it differently, you may lose more water and your 150g of chicken could shrink to 120g. Still the same calories though! For the most accurate results, weigh it raw (and input the raw weights - cooking generally doesn't destroy calories).

Same thing goes for starches - depending on the way it's cooked and the specific properties of the starch, it may absorb more or less of the cooking liquid, thereby adding too much variance in the calorie content to be accurately weighed cooked. If you weight it raw, you know EXACTLY how much "raw" product you have and that you are not inadvertently weighing too much or too little water which entered into the product during cooking.

(edit for atrocious spelling)

kateowp

If I am preparing the food myself and starting with raw meat I weigh it raw and log it as raw meat. If I am starting with cooked meat (ie a rotisserie chicken) I weigh it cooked (obviously) and log it as it is (ie rotisserie chicken with the skin removed).