Chicken clarification?

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mrudebeck
mrudebeck Posts: 1
in Food and Nutrition
For the offering of "Chicken - Breast, meat only, cooked, roasted" does anyone know whether 0.5 breast means half of one piece of chicken breast (like the pieces you can buy individually at the grocery store), or if it means half of an entire chicken's breast since the full breast of a chicken is technically two of those pieces until you carve it up. (So a full piece of the individual chicken breast you can buy)

I hope that makes sense. I just want to make sure I am logging it correctly. Thanks.

Replies

  • liftreadphilosophize
    liftreadphilosophize Posts: 180 Member
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    Honestly, your best bet is to measure it using a food scale. According to livestrong, the nutritional info on 3 oz of cooked chicken breasts are:

    142 calories
    3.1g fat
    26.7g protein

    Hope that helps a little.
  • peacemongernc
    peacemongernc Posts: 253 Member
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    I was so frustrated with the chicken entries on MFP because there is a huge variance between them. Most of them are incorrect. Skinless roasted chicken has around 46 calories (45 to 55) per ounce, and about 8 grams of protein per ounce. 1/2 a breast, in most calorie counting books, is about 3 ounces. A breast without skin would be closer to the 45 calorie end of the spectrum than the 55 calorie end.

    This information came from my copy of Bowes & Church's Food Values of Portions Commonly Used, 19th edition.

    Many of the boneless skinless chicken breasts I buy are 1/2 the breast, but they are at least 6 ounces.

    Hope this helps!

    Shannon
  • CMB1979
    CMB1979 Posts: 588 Member
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    Honestly, your best bet is to measure it using a food scale. According to livestrong, the nutritional info on 3 oz of cooked chicken breasts are:

    142 calories
    3.1g fat
    26.7g protein

    Hope that helps a little.

    This. Buy a digital food scale (if you can find an affordable one). My chicken breast this morning was 92 grams... or a little over 3 oz if I were in the USA.
  • rwhawkes
    rwhawkes Posts: 117 Member
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    I discovered to my utter horror last week that weighing my food is a serious reality check. I was having a couple chicken thighs, no skin, no bone, and the MFP estimate was 200 calories less than what it turned out to be when I weighed it.

    So what I'm doing now is getting the calorie count for weight (eg for 100 grams) and recording the portion as a percentage of that. For example, 69 grams is 0.69 of a serving based on 100 grams.

    I need my input and output calorie counts to be accurate if I want to lose some weight. Hoping that weighing food will be helpful.
  • JCThayer85
    JCThayer85 Posts: 21
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    In my experience, mostly with Tyson chicken breasts, a serving is 4oz, and there's about 6 servings per container, which is 3 breasts. I just cut a breast in half and use that as a serving.
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    I go by the brand or grocery store where I bought it. I don't bother with a food scale... I just divide the weight in pounds by the number of breasts or tenderloins per package. For instance, 12 breasts and 5 pounds of chicken means about 6.5 ounces per breast. Once I trim off the yucky bits (which I feed to my dog... he loves them raw), it's about 6 ounces per breast, which is what I typically eat at dinner.
  • Just_Scott
    Just_Scott Posts: 1,766 Member
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    Homemade - Oven Roasted Chicken Breast, 1/2 breast 142 0 3 26 64 0
    Chicken - Breast, Roasted, Skinless , 0.5 breast 70 0 2 18 42 0
    Chicken Breast - Boneless, Skinless, Roasted - Chicken, 140 g (4.7 oz) 231 0 5 43 104 0
    Boar's Head - Ever Roast Chicken Breast, 4 oz 100 2 1 22 880 0
    Nutritiondata.Com - Chicken, Roasting, Meat Only, Raw, 0.25 lb. 58 0 2 11 39 0

    Just for Sh(* and giggles I typed in chicken, roasted, skinless, or breast skinless and this what came up--along with 400 other potentials. To keep it simple--measure it. Done.
  • peacemongernc
    peacemongernc Posts: 253 Member
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    Homemade - Oven Roasted Chicken Breast, 1/2 breast 142 0 3 26 64 0
    Chicken - Breast, Roasted, Skinless , 0.5 breast 70 0 2 18 42 0
    Chicken Breast - Boneless, Skinless, Roasted - Chicken, 140 g (4.7 oz) 231 0 5 43 104 0
    Boar's Head - Ever Roast Chicken Breast, 4 oz 100 2 1 22 880 0
    Nutritiondata.Com - Chicken, Roasting, Meat Only, Raw, 0.25 lb. 58 0 2 11 39 0

    Just for Sh(* and giggles I typed in chicken, roasted, skinless, or breast skinless and this what came up--along with 400 other potentials. To keep it simple--measure it. Done.

    Measuring wouldn't help here if you didn't know which one was right. The last three show that: 4.7 ounces is 231 calories, 4 ounces is 100 calories and .25 lb (4 ounces) is 58 calories. The first one of those (the 3rd one down) is the only one that falls in a range of possibility and is measured precisely.
  • cmeiron
    cmeiron Posts: 1,599 Member
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    Homemade - Oven Roasted Chicken Breast, 1/2 breast 142 0 3 26 64 0
    Chicken - Breast, Roasted, Skinless , 0.5 breast 70 0 2 18 42 0
    Chicken Breast - Boneless, Skinless, Roasted - Chicken, 140 g (4.7 oz) 231 0 5 43 104 0
    Boar's Head - Ever Roast Chicken Breast, 4 oz 100 2 1 22 880 0
    Nutritiondata.Com - Chicken, Roasting, Meat Only, Raw, 0.25 lb. 58 0 2 11 39 0

    Just for Sh(* and giggles I typed in chicken, roasted, skinless, or breast skinless and this what came up--along with 400 other potentials. To keep it simple--measure it. Done.

    Measuring wouldn't help here if you didn't know which one was right. The last three show that: 4.7 ounces is 231 calories, 4 ounces is 100 calories and .25 lb (4 ounces) is 58 calories. The first one of those (the 3rd one down) is the only one that falls in a range of possibility and is measured precisely.

    Chose the entry without the * beside it...usually these are USDA estimates, and are pretty reliable.
  • palmerar
    palmerar Posts: 489 Member
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    I find getting a good estimate for calories in chicken and pork really difficult. I buy chicken breasts that are pre portioned with nutrition info on the package. They are also hand trimmed before packaging and 110 cals per 4 oz. I would look for those if they have them. Also, go by the deck of cards size comparison, while (hopefully) your meat is not perfectly recatangular, if you actually look at the deck of cards next to the meat it should look pretty close, or about the same as a closed fist is 4 oz. Also, maybe try looking up nurition info on the USDA site?
  • Nordichorseman
    Nordichorseman Posts: 12 Member
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    Check out the "National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference." Here is the link...

    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
  • ddhdml
    ddhdml Posts: 22 Member
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    Buy a scale. I bought a non digital one at target for five dollars. It is an eye opener. I was under guesstimating the amounts i could eat.
  • danimalkeys
    danimalkeys Posts: 982 Member
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    Funny this topic came up. The other day I made some grilled boneless, skinless breasts. Even by plugging in the brand name, I came up with anywhere from 100-130 calories per 4oz serving.

    If there are no values on the package (I buy a lot of chicken in bulk, by the 40lb case, because I feed my dogs a raw diet and the cases don't have the nutritional info on them), I always use the highest calorie value on my search just to make sure I'm not undercutting.

    I weigh everything and don't use any value that is "1 whole piece" kind of stuff, unless I have no choice. There is too much room for error that way.

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