Weighing vs measuring food

13

Replies

  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
    I too weigh my food (and cry at how little peanut butter I get - I swear 32 grams is barely a tablespoon and nowhere near two!).

    But how did you get the info for the rice? When I see rice in grams, it's referencing it dry - before being cooked.

    I'm a little OCD. So I weighed out my dry rice, weighed my rice pot, and cooked the rice. After the rice was cooked, I weighed the resulting rice, and used the ratio to figure out the calories.

    For example: (numbers made up for sake of easy math)

    100g of dry rice = 400g of cooked rice.

    100g of dry rice = 200 calories (yes, this is off, bear with me)

    400g cooked rice = 200 calories

    150g cooked rice in my lunch = 75 calories

    That's not OCD it's just good math! I'm a data geek and have planned to do this too but never got around to it. Problem is that sometimes the water content of the cooked rice is different so final volume is different. But have you found that in general it expands to 4X?
  • pspetralia
    pspetralia Posts: 963 Member
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY

    Great video to prove the point!
  • rockerbabyy
    rockerbabyy Posts: 2,258 Member
    Thank you for this post.. I have a great food scale but have really only been weighing my meats and stuff, however things like 1/2 cup of nuts, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, or even 1 cup of cereal I have just been using measuring cups. I would like to be doing this right but to be honest I have no idea what 1/2 a cup is in grams. If anyone has a link to some charts for this info it would be great. Thanks
    everything is going to weigh differently - so i just go by the data on the package. most times items have both cup and gram measurements listed like, "1/2 C (113g)" [example from my cottage cheese] or "2/3 C (28g)" [cheerios example]
  • davidpearly
    davidpearly Posts: 177 Member
    Thank you for this post.. I have a great food scale but have really only been weighing my meats and stuff, however things like 1/2 cup of nuts, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, or even 1 cup of cereal I have just been using measuring cups. I would like to be doing this right but to be honest I have no idea what 1/2 a cup is in grams. If anyone has a link to some charts for this info it would be great. Thanks
    everything is going to weigh differently - so i just go by the data on the package. most times items have both cup and gram measurements listed like, "1/2 C (113g)" [example from my cottage cheese] or "2/3 C (28g)" [cheerios example]

    thanks I will start looking at that
  • lindsyrox
    lindsyrox Posts: 257 Member
    I've also heard that there can be a 20% variance in calories on nutrition lables which doesnt seem like much but when you've got a 1500 calorie day thats potentially 300 extra calories snuck in.
  • Andrew_peter
    Andrew_peter Posts: 94 Member
    Weight most everything, unless it is a liquid or prepacked/premade food item thing as they are usually spot on for weight per item. Everything else you are right, weight is just way more accurate than measuring I've found.
  • coolraul07
    coolraul07 Posts: 1,606 Member
    Great post. I learned this lesson when I bought a food scale.

    I still get a little teary-eyed when I weigh out 32g of peanut butter, and remember what I used to call 2 tablespoons.

    ^^THIS! I just made a CPB&J sammich a little while ago with my digital scale and thought back to a year ago contrasting what they looked like then vs. now. I'd estimate that my 'year-ago' sammich was probably 300 cals more than the measured ones I make now! Same with the bowl'o'cereal.

    Addendum: That's why I always try to add a weight measure with volume when I add something new to MFP. (e.g. 3 tbsp - 46g) I ALWAYS use weight as primary measurement, and only use volume when weight isn't available.
  • ElGatoBB
    ElGatoBB Posts: 20
    Oh, 1/2 cup of cereal does NOT weigh the way it says on the box. Tried with so many, when I was still eating cold cereal.

    Food scales are a gift from the heavens. All "portions" given in packages are, ahem, designed to make you eat more, and feel les guilty. After all, they have to sell it. The tbsp measure, especially, maddens me.
  • coolraul07
    coolraul07 Posts: 1,606 Member
    I'm a little OCD. So I weighed out my dry rice, weighed my rice pot, and cooked the rice. After the rice was cooked, I weighed the resulting rice, and used the ratio to figure out the calories.

    For example: (numbers made up for sake of easy math)

    100g of dry rice = 400g of cooked rice.

    100g of dry rice = 200 calories (yes, this is off, bear with me)

    400g cooked rice = 200 calories

    150g cooked rice in my lunch = 75 calories
    I'm NOT OCD and I do this with my spaghetti! Ratios RULE! #MathGeek
  • ValerieMartini2Olives
    ValerieMartini2Olives Posts: 3,024 Member
    Buying the kitchen scale was one of the smartest things I ever did. I feel like I get much more bang for my buck when I eat. But then there are times where I'm like "Oh... THAT'S what 50g looks like?" But that doesn't happen very often.
  • sharonKay65
    sharonKay65 Posts: 93 Member
    I know I need to get one, and in fact I remembered today while I was at Dollar General but they did not have one and time didn't permit me going to Walmart or somewhere else to look right then. I noticed one person wrote that they simply rounded up which I have done on a few things when I have to. Thanks for the comparisons though..... I know what I will be buying tomorrow!
  • Andrew_peter
    Andrew_peter Posts: 94 Member
    Oh, 1/2 cup of cereal does NOT weigh the way it says on the box. Tried with so many, when I was still eating cold cereal.

    Food scales are a gift from the heavens. All "portions" given in packages are, ahem, designed to make you eat more, and feel les guilty. After all, they have to sell it. The tbsp measure, especially, maddens me.

    Cereal was a huge surprise for me too. A 30g serving of cheerios just looks sad in a bowl by itself...
  • Brie4me
    Brie4me Posts: 238
    Thank you for this post.. I have a great food scale but have really only been weighing my meats and stuff, however things like 1/2 cup of nuts, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, or even 1 cup of cereal I have just been using measuring cups. I would like to be doing this right but to be honest I have no idea what 1/2 a cup is in grams. If anyone has a link to some charts for this info it would be great. Thanks


    Here you go: http://calculator-converter.com/converter_g_to_c_grams_to_cups_calculator.php
  • tigger_belle
    tigger_belle Posts: 7 Member
    Thanks! Some real food for thought!
    :)
  • LisaGirlfriend
    LisaGirlfriend Posts: 493 Member
    you are definitely right and have made up my mind to buy a digital food scale. Thanks for the wake up. :-)
  • efirkey
    efirkey Posts: 298 Member
    I agree with the OP. I just yesterday was looking at someone's diary and they had the following. 4 ounces of chicken breast 30 calories. This was so obviously wrong and I saw examples like this in more than one person's diary. It doesn't help when I look up something like chicken breast and there are a half of dozen entries with calorie counts ranging from 25 to 50 calories per ounce. Which one do you choose? If you choose 25, well then you can have more ounces of chicken.

    We all eat pretty much the same foods during the course of the week. I suggest that you verify your counts on a lot of these items with other websites or a calorie counts book.

    And measure accurately. You are only making it more difficult for yourself if you fudge the numbers and then need to figure out why or why not you are losing weight.
  • efirkey
    efirkey Posts: 298 Member
    I cook a lot of Basmati Rice and 1 cup dry produces 4 cups cooked.
  • PonyTailedLoser
    PonyTailedLoser Posts: 315 Member
    Exactly!
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    so true
  • shorty35565
    shorty35565 Posts: 1,425 Member
    I have a food scale and I weigh everything!
  • giggitygoo
    giggitygoo Posts: 1,978 Member
    Food scales are a must! Mine lives permanently on my counter, and I cook nothing without it.

    More accurate, and I don't have to wash a million cups and spoons. Win win.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    huzzah for my food scale. I luffs mine.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VRLQFA/

    Soehnle rocks!
  • tndejong
    tndejong Posts: 463
    after reading this. i could definitely improve in this area. but i also want to argue that i dont want to be 60 walking around measuring everything. if its cereal or things in a box with serving sizes, i do grab a measuring cup. but things things like fruits and veggies im not going to go crazy. im not going to measure out cups of lettuce and tomatoes. and many items like bananas and apples have the fruit sizes listed. when i get into dinners i will create a recipe. enter all the ingredients. and if the meal creates leftovers, i will put the additional in the correct serving size in plastic bowls. and when all else fails, just estimate up? i just think its getting a little too crazy when your talking onions and such.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    after reading this. i could definitely improve in this area. but i also want to argue that i dont want to be 60 walking around measuring everything. if its cereal or things in a box with serving sizes, i do grab a measuring cup. but things things like fruits and veggies im not going to go crazy. im not going to measure out cups of lettuce and tomatoes. and many items like bananas and apples have the fruit sizes listed. when i get into dinners i will create a recipe. enter all the ingredients. and if the meal creates leftovers, i will put the additional in the correct serving size in plastic bowls. and when all else fails, just estimate up? i just think its getting a little too crazy when your talking onions and such.

    I don't care much when it comes to things like lettuce and onions, but fruit can make a serious difference if not measured out. Most have it by the gram and its easy enough to measure it.

    And always be exact with dried fruit, its calorie dense unlike its fresh counterparts.
  • lovemitch125
    lovemitch125 Posts: 257 Member
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY

    oh. my. god.
    Too much to handle.
  • stacezilla
    stacezilla Posts: 83
    just bought a scale online
    i feel like im going to be eating NO FOOD.
    ;[

    nooooo, i want it all
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
    The funny thing about this is that your "calculated" BMR/TDEE and exercise calories can be just as inaccurate. So even if you've managed to weigh everything you ingest to the nearest microcalorie, your target might still be way off anyway. The important part is not the actual number of calories you eat or burn, but the actual number of calories in your deficit.

    It seems a simpler matter to adjust your 'goal' instead. If you are aiming for 2000 "calories" and you are neither gaining nor losing, but you eat and exercise relatively consistently, then you would create a 500 calorie deficit by lowering your goal to 1500 "calories." It's like shooting a gun with maladjusted sights... measure the difference between where you aimed and where you hit, problem solved. :bigsmile:
  • TNR32
    TNR32 Posts: 110 Member
    bump
  • chocolatecheries123
    chocolatecheries123 Posts: 7
    Great iformation. Thanks!
  • steelreader
    steelreader Posts: 11
    I use my scales at every meal time, better safe than sorry a small apple to me might be a medium one to someone else x
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