Tracking rice - 1cup BEFORE/AFTER cooking?

Canadien

So I want to track some rice, but 1 cup or uncooked rice turns into like 3 cups after cooking! So in my diary, would I track that as 1 or 3 cups? I've been wondering this for months!

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

MariFitBody

I make 1 cup uncooked and measure out 3/4 cup cooked

Mock_Turtle

get a food scale and weight it out before you cook. Don't go by volume, go by mass.

You will find that in a 1/4 cup measuring cup you will get up to 50 grams of rice, not the 45 grams most bags claim for the serving size.

Canadien

This still doesn't really answer my question, though.
Do I track the way the rice was BEFORE I cooked it, or after?
:c

Mokey41

It depends what the information you're using says. Is it based on dry or cooked weight? It usually says. One quarter cup of dry rice is generally 150 calories. I like to measure dry because cooked size and weight can depend on how much water it absorbs.

50kgRussianBallerina

Dry. That is the simple answer to your simple question. Don't let people confuse you with unnecessary information

Yes, weight is more accurate. But weighing food all the time is not a way I, at least, would like to live my whole life - and not necessary for the majority of people. The difference is not significant enough!

Track the uncooked rice. 1 cup dry usually makes about 4 cups cooked. 1 c uncooked rice is usually about 600 kcal.
But honestly? You can track it cooked, too. Once again, the different in calories is not really significant over the long run. 1 c cooked rice is usually about 150 kcal.

blu_meanie_ca

Dry. Someone explained here before. The companies have to put the nutritional info for the food they sell. They are not selling you cooked rice, they are selling you dry rice. So, all the measurments, grams, or whatever, on packages of for unprepaired product.

But, the amount of water absorbed varies everytime you cook it. If you are cooking for others, weight your precooked, and then post cooked again, dividing by number of servings (if you feel a need to be super exact).

ladymiseryali

I go by the directions on the box. I usually measure out half a cup uncooked.

LilacSnow

It depends what the information you're using says. Is it based on dry or cooked weight? It usually says.

i find that the box almost NEVER says, and it pisses me off to to no end. are they taking about dry or cooked, frozen or thawed, raw or baked?!

MyChocolateDiet

i always thought it was cooked. i measure it once it's cooked. so i take like 1/2 cup of the rice once it's cooked and that's my serving and i use the mfp for brown rice. it seems right this way because 1/2 cup dry rice would be about 1 1/2 cups once it's cooked and that would look like way too much on my plate.

sometimes i allow myself a whole cup of brown rice but that already looks like too much if you use the 1/4 plate for starch, 1/4 plate for protein and 1/4 for a veggie and the other 1/4 for another veggie as a guide.

so i tend to think it means cooked. measured AFTER cooking.

SkimFlatWhite68

AFTER.

Or go by weight.

Shadowknight137

I just weigh out the rice dry and eat it all when it's cooked.

I'm a man of simple, yet refined eating habits.

50kgRussianBallerina

To clarify: on the packaging, it refers to DRY.

You can measure it either cooked or uncooked, you just have to account for the calories in each one appropriately.

If you made a big pot of rice and you scoop out 1 cup of it on top of your plate, you will log it as 1 c cooked rice which should be in the range of 160-250 kcal.

If you measure out one cup or uncooked rice then that cup will be around 800 kcal and so will the finished product once it's done cooking and expanded in volume to yield roughly 4 cups.

Both cooked and uncooked rice have calories. Each grain of rice has the same amount of calories whether it is cooked or uncooked. You can log it either way. You just have to specify which one you log it as.

...it's so simple that I feel I [along with every other poster on this thread] is only making it more complicated than it even IS! O_o LOL.

KenosFeoh

I always look for the cooked value. I'm cooking for 4 people, not just for myself, so I really have no way of knowing my individual portion of uncooked rice when it all goes into the same pot. 1/2 cup cooked - that's easy.

TrailRunner61

Weigh it on a food scale before you cook it. I learned the hard way when I had been measuring 1/2 cup of oats for a year and logging it as 150 cals. According to the package, 1/2 cup oats weighs 40 grams, when 1/2 in my measuring cup actually weighed over 70 grams. This could apply to any food. Weigh it!

taso42

If you weighed/measured cooked then log the cooked entry. If you measured dry then log the dry. If the db entry doesn't specificy, then find a better entry to log.

SmartAlec03211988

The box of Goya yellow rice I have in my hand right now doesn't specify whether it's cooked or uncooked. It just says 45 grams. OK, but 45 grams cooked is an exceptionally SMALL amount, so it must be dry, but I cooked the entire package, not just a serving, so unless I cook my serving separately from the entire box... how do I know?

bellesouth18

I cook for others as well and look for cooked in the database. With your cooked rice, go by measure (volume) and not by weight (mass) the first time you use it. Then weigh it to see what weight you can use next time you cook it. One half cup of cooked rice is not always equal to 4 ounces IMHO. That's one way. I just measure out a portion in a measuring cup every time I want to eat it. The same with pasta. One cup of pasta weighs less than 8 ounces. So if you put 8 ounces by weight on your plate, you're eating more than you think.

jett254

If I'm cooking for my family, I weigh it before and after as needed and then divide. So, for instance, I'll measure 4 serving (and let's say the box says 1 serving = 100 calories). Then, before I serve everyone, I weigh it again and let's say it ended up being 1000g so I know that 1000g cooked = 400 calories (4*100 calories) so I measure my portion and divide accordingly - I end up calling my recipes 10 servings to make the math easy, so I made 10 servings of rice (100g each) at 40 calories per serving for 400 calories total. Hopefully that made sense. When I do the recipe, I enter it as a new recipe and put the total grams in the title (like White Rice - 1000g total)) and mark it as 10 servings, then then I can have 2 servings, or 3 servings or whatever is an appropriate serving.

petiteMom289

I always measure after cooking.

Jonesingmucho

After cooking....

socrates02

after cooking

evileen99

The rice will never absorb the same amount of water twice, so there is no way to put the exact calotie count of cooked rice on the package. Weigh the rice dry, cook, then weigh again. Then divide the calories by the cooked weight to get cals/gram, and then you can determine the calories in any size portion.

sophiemerrick16

Good idea to weigh before as well as after!

neanderthin

So I want to track some rice, but 1 cup or uncooked rice turns into like 3 cups after cooking! So in my diary, would I track that as 1 or 3 cups? I've been wondering this for months!

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

1 cup of uncooked rice doesn't gain calories when cooked, just water, so just adjust the consumed amount as a percentage of the raw rice. You could divide the total uncooked caloric value to the cooked value and divide by weight or measurement, it's up to you.

Nikion901

I wanted rice for supper tonight and ended up googling it and found out that it is 1/4 cup DRY rice (before it's cooked) that makes 1 serving ... and it cooks up to 3/4 cups. WOW I am so happy ... I have been logging it wrong !!!! and now I can enjoy it so much!!!!

lynn_glenmont

50kgRussianBallerina wrote: »

Dry. That is the simple answer to your simple question. Don't let people confuse you with unnecessary information

Yes, weight is more accurate. But weighing food all the time is not a way I, at least, would like to live my whole life - and not necessary for the majority of people. The difference is not significant enough!

Track the uncooked rice. 1 cup dry usually makes about 4 cups cooked. 1 c uncooked rice is usually about 600 kcal.
But honestly? You can track it cooked, too. Once again, the different in calories is not really significant over the long run. 1 c cooked rice is usually about 150 kcal.

To each their own, but this concept seems a little bizarre to me when you're following a recipe. I can get saying you just want to toss together a salad or a stir-fry without measuring, but you're going to measure the rice anyway to get the right proportion of water to rice, aren't you? It's generally easier and more accurate and dirties fewer utensils to weigh the ingredients in your recipes than to portion them out based on volume.

I had a food scale in my kitchen for baking long before I ever started using to track and log my personal food intake. It's just more accurate. (Especially when I started making bread in a bread machine in warm weather, when I don't want to turn the oven on, and couldn't gauge whether the amount of flour was correct from the feel of the dough during the kneading process, since I wasn't doing the kneading.)

lynn_glenmont

Arrgghh!! Suckered by a zombie thread!

corinasue1143

Before. Some people put more/less water. The weight/volume of that water will make a difference in the weight/volume of the cooked rice, but not the total calories/nutrition.

ktekc

if you weigh dry log using an entry that matches the box. . If you weigh cooked find a usda entry that matches ie.

20545, Rice, white, long-grain, regular, cooked, unenriched, with salt
thats what i do.

kevincommins1

You can measure out how much raw rice you’re cooking then eat what you want save the left overs for the week and divide by how many days it takes to eat all the rice.