Cooked or raw chicken calories? I seriously need help

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GODfidence
GODfidence Posts: 249 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I just bought a food scale and am confused.
I weighed out 220 grams,skinless, boneless chicken and then
Cooked it and weighed it after out of curiosity and to my surprise it weighs
95 grams! I thought I was eating almost 8 ounces but now it's less than 4..
Which calories are accurate? The weight before or after?
Thanks

Replies

  • rudarbe
    rudarbe Posts: 164 Member
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    Weigh it before. Unless specified that it's cooked, the nutritional information is from its raw form. Good luck!
  • chezjuan
    chezjuan Posts: 747 Member
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    It depends on the entry in the database - raw would use the pre-cooked weight, whereas cooked... well, I think you get the idea. I look for the raw entries and use them when I can. I think most of the weight lost to cooking is water.

    Incidentally, I did this a few times with beef and it seems that most beef (at least the kind that I get) loses about 1/4 of its weight when you grill it.
  • james6998
    james6998 Posts: 743 Member
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    I just bought a food scale and am confused.
    I weighed out 220 grams,skinless, boneless chicken and then
    Cooked it and weighed it after out of curiosity and to my surprise it weighs
    95 grams! I thought I was eating almost 8 ounces but now it's less than 4..
    Which calories are accurate? The weight before or after?
    Thanks
    In a situation like this i would trim off just enough to make it 200 grams. Easy to figure out that way. Almost all the time the weights are raw, but if you happen to have the package just do a quick compare with the database doesn't hurt.
  • GODfidence
    GODfidence Posts: 249 Member
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    It went from 8 ounces to 3.5 though... Hmm
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
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    Use the entry that matches how you weigh it. If you weigh it before cooking enter the raw, or after cooking enter the cooked. Either works. The only difference between the two is basically the amount of water.

    Of course, you have no real way of knowing exactly what % of water it started at while raw (vs the % water the raw entry is estimated at), or how dry the your cooked chicken vs the cooked" entry is. It's an estimate either way.
  • eatcleanNtraindirty
    eatcleanNtraindirty Posts: 444 Member
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    I always weigh my chicken after cooking it... and use the entries that I find on here.

    I guess I've been doing it wrong and have been getting significantly more protein/calories???

    I don't know I guess I could use some help.

    Although it doesn't seem to be all that bad for me considering I've been using it this way for at least a year now and have competed in a NPC physique competition and took home 9th place for my first time being in a show... lost 20lbs in the process and got down to about 6-7% bodyfat... but I am curious as to the before/after cooking weights and what I should be entering

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