Portion sizes on packets

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Morning all,

I am currently having an issue with portion sizes....

Last night I had some dried medium noodles, the packet says that 125g is a portion, but does not say whether that is cooked or dried! They come in handy little blocks in the packet so I thought that was a portion......

When I weighed it after cooking it was 175g, and looked a huge amount! Yet they only weigh 90g when raw.

Any suggestions to help with the packet serving sizes? Noodles aren not the only food I have had this issue with.

Thanks

Replies

  • lexbubbles
    lexbubbles Posts: 465 Member
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    Hi

    The noodles I buy (from supermarkets in the UK, I don't know where you're based) list the serving size as 'x grams when cooked'. I normally find this relates to about 1/2 a packet? So one packet is 2 servings (though I will still eat the entire pack to myself because I have nobody to share it with and not here for wasting half my food). I don't know if that's any help to you at all ^___^

    I agree though, sometimes the serving size on packets is really misleading. The one that pops to mind is pop tarts. They're packaged in pairs, yet 1 pastry is a serving? What am I supposed to do with the other one?
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    unless otherwise specified on the package, always raw. so you had 0.72 servings. The problem with noodles is when cooked depending how long they may absorb dif amount of water so will weigh more, but dont have any more cals in them.
  • Zomoniac
    Zomoniac Posts: 1,169 Member
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    99% of the time it refers to uncooked weight. Unless it's Asda, who are massive *kitten*, and give their weights for pasta and rice as when cooked, and their mushroom nutrition as "per 100g as fried with a knob of butter". Nothing like vague imprecision to optimise a diet plan...
  • eylia
    eylia Posts: 200 Member
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    unless otherwise specified on the package, always raw. so you had 0.72 servings.

    This, almost always. Things like pasta are much more reliably weighed dry as the amount of time you cook them changed the rehydrated weight so much-slightly overcooked and it'll be holding a lot more water and seem like more. So yeah, unless the package says 'cooked weight'. assume dry. Just as some canned tuna lists the 'drained' weight.


    eh. edit; didn't mean to go on repeat.
  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    Noodle serving sizes are often half a packet. A whole packet can easily total 500+ calories, and I used to eat one of those with a tin of tuna as a snack after running - no wonder I got fat!
  • SlimSonic
    SlimSonic Posts: 127 Member
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    Many thanks everyone for your help......I shall now go read all the packets!