Is chicken weighed when raw or cooked?

I always use the cooked weight when I'm logging my food.

There are entries for both cooked and raw chicken in the database. Use the entry that matches the state of the food when you weigh it. Just be sure that the entry matches. If you use a raw entry for cooked weight, then you are underestimating calories (I find that chicken typically loses 25% of its weight in the cooking process, mostly water), and vice versa.

I personally try to weigh my meats raw and enter them using the raw entries. But sometimes I forget to weigh it, so then I weigh it and find an entry that matches my cooking method (chicken breast, grilled, for example).

ETA: In other words, what SouthernArt77 said :laugh:

ok thanks everyone, If i take 50 grams off the raw weight would the be more accurate?

No find the entry for Cooked, roasted, fried, skin on etc.

ok thanks everyone, If i take 50 grams off the raw weight would the be more accurate?

This assumes that you are cooking chicken breast:

If you want to use the raw weight, use this entry: "Generic - Chicken Breast, Skinless, Raw 100 g (Usda Data)" and your calorie count will be accurate. So you would have 300g of raw chicken or about 360 calories.

If you roasted the chicken breast, you can use this entry: "Generic - Chicken, Breast, Roasted, Broiled, or Baked, Skin Not Eaten (Rls) 28 g (Usda Data)". Assuming about a 25% loss of mass due to water weight, it comes out to 370 calories (so basically the same as the raw).

Do not just subtract from the raw weight and use the cooked entry (or subtract from the raw weight and use the raw entry) as that will lead to bad numbers. For example, if you put in the 225g that the chicken weighs cooked as raw, you would get 270 calories, or be underestimating by 100 calories.

If the package says raw or cooked on it for serving size then go by that. I usually weigh my chicken breasts raw; however, whenever I buy a case of chicken breasts from Wal Mart it says on the nutrional label 3oz cooked. So, I weigh that after it is cooked.

Look at it this way, if it loses weight in cooking, it's usually water, which has 0 calories. So, not knowing HOW much weight it might lose in cooking, it's better to weigh it AFTER cooking, so you're not overestimating the calories (by weighing water weight in raw food).

I'd think that if you don't know how much water is lost in cooking, it would better to weigh the meat BEFORE cooking when the contribution of water as a percentage of the total weight of the chicken is at its most consistent. Wait to weigh it after it's cooked and you have no practical way of knowing the percentage of water that's been lost. And even if you did, you don't know how much water was lost from the cooked chicken in the MFP database entry.

That said, I sometimes weigh after cooking anyway, as when I broil an entire roasting pan's worth of chicken breasts to be eaten at several days' worth of lunches. It's too much bother to keep track of the pre-cooked weight of each and every piece until it's eaten.