Weighing your food....how do you do it?

stonel94 · August 2013

Okay, so I've had some issues with knowing what to log since I have gotten my food scale. I love it and for things like snacks or raw veggies and peanut butter and stuff it's great. I love knowing i'm having the exact serving. But with some things it's complicated here are some specific issues I have:
Rice: on the package it's like 1/4 cup dry (3/4 cooked) (43 grams) or something like that. Now the 43 grams is for the uncooked rice, but they don't say how much it'll weigh with it cooked, so should I just multiply that by 3 because it goes from 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup??

Corn on the cobb: trying to log this today but most are just like "i medium ear" or something like that, or how many grams it yields (which sounds like when it's taken off the cobb?) and I weighed an ear of corn we have that we cooked last night and it's like 200 something grams and all the "large ear" stats are like 146 but I wonder is that when it was raw because it absorbed water when it was cooked....so what do I log?

Meat: do I weigh it raw or cooked? what if I already have it cooked? because a lot of the things on here don't specify whether it was raw or cooked...I assume raw but sometimes I have it cooked already so I just weigh that..

PLEASE HELP

KarenJanine · August 2013

With rice, just weigh it dry and go with a database entry for dry rice. As long as you're only cooking in water, the end weight doesn't matter.

With an ear of corn, weight it before eating then weigh it once you've eaten. The difference will be the amount of sweetcorn you've eaten.

For meat there will be entries for in its raw state, e.g. 200g chicken breast uncooked. But check through the MFP database, most will specify whether cooked or raw. For meat that is already cooked, there will also be entries, such as 'grilled chicken breast'.

Remember, all calorie numbers are estimates so don't get too hung up on small variations.

Francl27 · August 2013

For the corn I thought it was the whole thing... well the time I got some I just weighed the whole thing.

I have the same issues with peaches, plums etc... never know if it includes the pit or not. I just assume it does.

Rice, pasta etc I just approximate, we cook more than one serving at a time and I can't really be bothered weighing everything 3 times to get my serving. So I just use cooked entries, even if they're not really accurate... If you only do it for yourself though, definitely just weigh it before cooking.

Meat I typically use cooked entries.

ETA: always use the scale when possible... measuring cups and spoons tend to overestimate by a lot.

aetzkorn14 · August 2013

I weigh my meat once it is cooked. As far as rice I will keep up with how many servings I am cooking then just divide once it is done. I don't get real serious with veggies since they have a low calorie impact and it generally takes more calories to burn than it gives you. but I will say weighing food is a necessity now. I helps keep me from over eating

kwedman488 · August 2013

I just got a food scale about a month ago so I'll try to shed some light with what I do. For things like rice and oatmeal and such, I just use a measuring cup when it's dry. For things like corn on the cob, what I did was look up online the length of a medium ear of corn and the calories for it. I think it's somewhere around 140-150 cals for sweet corn. But when I boiled it I would then just cut the kernels off and divide the kernels to be roughly the same weight or visible amount between 2 containers so I could split it between 2 meals and have a better caloric idea of what to do with it. For meat I weigh it out before I cook it, because the nutrition labels on the packaging are referring to it as it is packaged, I.e raw. So like when I buy my 99% lean ground turkey, I weigh it out on my scale 2 oz at a time and make them into patties and then freeze them until I want to cook them. Although I add spices to the meat before I weigh and freeze it; but not tons so it shouldn't have an impact (just pepper and Italian seasoning usually).

When I weigh out fruit I usually weigh it in grams if MFP has the option when I log it, otherwise I'll weigh in ounces knowing a cup is 8 ounces, 1/2 cup is 4, etc. for cantaloupe and mangos and such I just go by 1/2 mango or 1/4 cantaloupe when I log it-especially the cantaloupe because I know it's medium sized, and I just cut it into 4 even quarters and bag them up until I eat them. I eat 1/2 a mango at a time when I add it to my oatmeal every day, so I just log it as a little over half a mango each time just in case the mango is slightly larger than normal or whatever. I don't like weighing it because I take the skin off and you don't eat the ginormous seed so that's a lot of weight taken off the original mango. After awhile you get pretty good at estimating so that you're really close to perfect even without the scale

MercenaryNoetic26 · August 2013

Easiest way to measure is every 100g most of the time using mfp entries. Meat is usually oz. I measure meat cooked. Why count all the water that will evaporate when it's cooked? I also use entries with the most confirmations.

stonel94 · August 2013

how do you know which entries have the most confirmations?

And for things like rice we always cook a big pot of it and so when I want some with a meal or something I have to weigh out the serving and it's already cooked.

for things like fruit I include the pit in the weight

winelover18 · August 2013

how do you know which entries have the most confirmations?

And for things like rice we always cook a big pot of it and so when I want some with a meal or something I have to weigh out the serving and it's already cooked.

for things like fruit I include the pit in the weight

It will say just below the entry title on the right hand side, just above where you select the portion size, etc. It will say "X confirmations,"

Weighing your food....how do you do it?

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