Anyone use a kitchen scale to weigh food before eating?

I do, weigh the lot, including 1 apple / orange etc, they vary so much

Yes even lettuce & cucumber, it all adds up

As others said, it will be an eye opener, and sometimes tha calories for the weight / volume are just not worth it to me. 100 grammes of dry rice is so small I would rather just have an apple for instance

PS mine were from Lidl, and has a zero function so you can add food like lettuce to plate, zero, add some more, say cucumber and so on

I do. I find weighing to be the most accurate.

Religiously. Every day. For almost all foods, except when I'm using measuring cups.

Absolutely!! I weigh everything that I eat at home.

I have this scale http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=17290339. Cost me 30.00 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I like that the display piece pulls out so if you put a large plate on it to measure you can still see the display (my old one the plate would overshadow the display).

Me too I weigh everything

Yes. I got it because I had no idea how to log things like cheese otherwise. Mine is called "Escali" and cost me about $30, I think.

Yeah I use a food scale for pretty much everything. I think the one at home is a general digital scale.

Yes! I have one with a platform that I put my plate on and hit the tare button. Then as I load up my plate I log the quantities of everything by weight. My biggest shocker was actually fruit. What one person considers a "medium" piece of fruit may not be the same as what I consider a "medium" piece of fruit, but 28 gr (1 oz) is always 28 gr.

I weigh almost everything that isn't liquid. I can just about guess how much the slice of avocado, cube of cheese, or portion of meat weighs now. Mine is a vintage spring scale (Pelouze, 2 lb capacity with 1/4 ounce divisions) designed for weighing ice cream servings--very simple and very accurate, .

Costco has a nice digital scale on sale right now. http://www.frugalhotspot.com/2012/12/kamenstein-digital-kitchen-scale-15-99/

Yep, keeps me honest. I don't weigh everything, but I still do sometimes just to make sure I am estimating properly.

I use this one and love it: Cuisinart KS-55 Weight Mate Digital Kitchen Scale. About $33 on Amazon.

Yup, weigh most things. It can be truly eye opening. I have the Biggest Loser Scale. Honestly, I don't think the brand matters; I would just look for a few features- big enough surface to actually put things on and still be able to see what the reading is, the ability to zero it out (helps when I put a bowl down and then add the product to the bowl), and the ability to switch between grams and ounces.

Yes, I have and use a food scale. Without it, I wouldn't know if my portions were accurate, this is especially true for meat and snack foods. If a portion size says 4oz. I have no idea how much that is and certainly don't want to guess so I think a food scale is essential. Mine isn't digital. It's just one I picked up at Wal-Mart. I've tested it against food labels and it's spot on perfect in it's measurements.

I got some scales from amazon, i'm sure they we're pretty inexpensive but they're amazing. I can't believe how wrong I was about my portion sizes! Especially pasta and rice- I must have been eating almost 200g before I started weighing things!

Yeah I have one by Taylor that I think is from Target. It's SO HELPFUL.

Here's a tip: you can put a container of something on the scale, then hit TARE, then remove stuff from the container and it will give you a negative number so you know exactly how much you've taken out. I find it super helpful for things like licking the peanut butter knife. Because whatever is on the knife is included in the weight you removed from the jar.

Such a great tip!

Is anyone here not using a scale? )

I find it difficult to truly track calories without scale, it's my number one tool.
I weight all ingredients before cooking (the cooked weight is a bad measurement, how much is cooked and how is too much of a variance), food after cooking (I don't just aproximate serving size), etc.

I think any kitchen scale would be good... I have a unknown brand and is ok. It won't last that long in the kitchen environment, but it's ok.
What I look in a scale is to have the `zero` feature. That way I don't have to substract the weight of containers and I get weight ingredients one by one as I add them.
Also, I am carefull on the maximum weight they can bare. I need at least 5 kg (big pots of food for the whole week must be weighted also in my world ) ).