Poll on Food Scale

If you are not using a food scale, you are not counting calories.

YES YES YES to having (and using) a food scale. It's on my counter, sitting right there, used many many many many times during the day.

You ask: "Do you find it absolutely necessary? Why not just read the food label?"

If a label says 2 oz pasta dry, how would you know to eat 2oz dry if you don't have something to weigh it on? Seeeeeee?

I just bought one!!!! It did come with a manual that had a list of foods and calories per ounce, etc. but it is important because I realized I was not accurately taking into account my calories. Like today for instance, I am going to have a piece of frozen chicken breast. The serving size on the label says 4 ounces, and each piece of chicken should be 4 ounces right? WRONG!!! This piece of chicken was almost 8 ounces!!!! 2x the amount I was accouting for before I got the scale!!!! So, I would say yes a food scale is important!!!!

YES YES YES to having (and using) a food scale. It's on my counter, sitting right there, used many many many many times during the day.

You ask: "Do you find it absolutely necessary? Why not just read the food label?"

If a label says 2 oz pasta dry, how would you know to eat 2oz dry if you don't have something to weigh it on? Seeeeeee?

The 2 ounces of pasta thing - IF you want me to eyeball 2 ounces of pasta - i could feed a family of 4. However, when I weigh it, I can only feed myself.

I do not use one but am thinking about getting one. I am a month in to this and would like to make sure I am doing everything correctly. I measure a lot or count (nuts/chips) so I dont think I am tooo far off although maybe I am. As far as ounces go I guess, I had a baby so i am familiar with ounces and measuring formula in bottles. I know that sounds weird but that is how I am doing it until i get scale should I decide to get one.

Can't just use the food label on foods that don't come with labels, like most vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, cuts of meat, etc.

I love having the scale which takes all the 'guesstimation' out of how much spinach to pack into a one cup measurer, for example. If I'm going to take the time to log, I might as well be as accurate as I can be. I've rarely had to edit or correct any food in the database that is listed by grams.

I'd probably rate food scale as the most helpful tool thus far for me. I was way off of everything I estimated before I got a food scale. I am way better at estimating now that I know what certain weights of my most used foods look like, but I still use the scale to be sure.

When I got serious about our food habits I bought 3 things- measuring spoons, measuring cups and a food scale. I had a manual one but adding the digital model that can measure oz, grams and pounds is great! I think you really need to portion your food to know how much you are eating. That along with reading and understanding the labels are critical. Ever try to figure out a 42 gm portion without a scale???

Good luck with your journey!

I need to buy a food scale soon.

My food scale has seriously been more worth it than I ever thought it would be! I wish I had gotten one sooner! So many foods I underestimated or overestimated based on the serving sizes given. They are soooo different when you actually weigh them out. Peanut butter and hummus serving sizes have gotten much smaller since I started using my scale! LOL 2 tablespoons I would have given myself were way over the 28 grams that is an actual serving. Especially with peanut butter, that is a big difference! With meat, I was waaayyyy underestimating the amount that was a serving, and only giving myself about half what I could have had!! That is a lot of missing protein!

In short, my food scale has made a huge difference!! Now I am getting good, I can eyeball the exact amounts of foods i eat often and then weigh to see if I was spot on or not :laugh:

I guess I don't count (calories). I have never used a scale and I probably never will. I don't even measure my food usually. I did at first, just to get an idea what 1 cup, or 2 Tbsp looks like. Rather than counting, I guess, I guesstimate. People can say what they want about the importance of accuracy and all that, but you won't obtain absolute accuracy even if you weigh every morsel of food that passes your lips -- because the reported calories are for food that was measured and burned in a bomb calorimeter long before you thought about dieting. Since then, the food manufactures and producers have produced other food, using similar materials and processes, but they are not exactly the same. There is variation in every process, even food production.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-nutritionists-measure-calories.html

I weigh myself every day and use mathematical formulas (actually apps that apply those formulas to my raw data) so I have a fairly realistic trend of my weight. Since the basic formula about human nutrition doesn't change -- energy in minus energy expended minus waste.

I recommend you read the Hacker's Diet. At least look at this page:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html

I use the scale all the time. One reason is most of my foods do not come with nutritional labels. The ones that do are off on their serving sizes. For example, my carrots say a serving size is about 5 carrots or 28g. When you weigh out the carrots it more like 10 carrots.

If I want to accurate I need to weigh. It's that simple.

This!

1/2 cup oats (40g) is more like 1/3 cup oats if you weigh it. So if you're using a 1/2 cup measure, you're eating more than the label says you are.

Same goes for 2/3c (81g) cut green beans that is 30 calories - in reality 81g of beans is more like 1 1/4 cups! So in t his case if you measure 2/3 cup, you're eating way LESS than the label says.

What about rice? Do you really cram it into the measure cup, or are you supposed to put some in there and lightly fill it? One way gets you a lot more than the other; if you're weighing it, you know.