Steamed vegetables - not on USDA database?

chaotisaurus

Hi!
So I watch calories and carbs. I prefer to eat kale and broccoli steamed. I also prefer to stick to adding foods from the myfitnesspal database WITHOUT the stars next to them (no offense but I have no idea where other users are getting their information for those "generic" entries and others). Unstarred items in the foods database means it's coming from the USDA database, which I trust. I also prefer those entries because you can enter per 100g, and I have a handy food scale right here in the kitchen.

SO
For vegetables such as kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc there are no USDA database entries for steamed preparation. There are entries for "boiled without salt" (who boils kale?). There seems to be a difference (enough for me to care) in calories and carbs from "Raw" entries and "boiled without salt" entries. I don't add anything when I steam vegetables, accept the water from the steam that's going into them. There's an even larger difference between those and what other users have added for steamed kale and broccoli (roughly double the calories and carbs of raw - depending on the vegetable).

SOoo...what gives? Does steaming or boiling vegetables really add calories and carbs? Does the USDA database assume that because it's "cooked, boiled, without salt" that you must be adding something to it if you are cooking it?

seena511

i would just add the calories for the raw veggies

otrlynn

I would guess the difference between raw and boiled without salt is that a food like kale reduces in volume as it is cooked (essentially the water in it is cooked out) so due to the reduced volume, a cup of cooked kale is going to have more calories than a cup of raw kale (assuming that you measure it after it has been cooked). Personally, I would probably use the "boiled" calories if I was steaming vegetables and no "steamed" value was given.

suztheq

Use the pre-cooked measurements for calorie tracking. Steaming vegetables with or without salt doesn't add calories. If you are tracking your sodium intake, then adding salt will affect that total.