Weighing food VS Measuring... WOW!

There isn't a day, or even a meal, that goes by where I don't use my scale. It is just a habit now. Even if I'm doing something quick like putting creamer in my coffee, I will put the mug on the scale, zero it out and weigh 6g of creamer right into the mug. If I am having toast I put my toast on the scale, zero it, and add 15g of peanut butter directly to the toast before spreading. There is no need to use extra containers to measure your ingredients. My new scale measures ounces, grams, pounds, liquid ounces and even milliliters. It is a stainless steel Ozeri scale from amazon. My bathroom scale is the same brand. It goes up to 11 pounds so I can weigh entire dishes and divide the weight by the number of servings to figure out the weight of one serving

One method I use the scale for in cooking: If I am making a recipe I will total all the calories in the batch, weigh it ( subtracting out the weight of the pan) and then divide to get the number of calories per gram or ounce. I write this number on my recipe card. Now when I cook the same meal again I can just put my bowl or plate on the scale and serve myself just the right measurement for how ever many calories I want to eat that meal. It has really simplified everything for me!

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For example if a serving size of OJ is 1 cup (8oz) You should really just put your cup on the scale and zero the scale out then add your OJ to be sure you see how much 8oz really looks like.

This is not entirely correct. For liquids like OJ, the 8 oz serving size is almost always a volume measurement (fl oz) rather than a mass measurement (grams, etc.).

It is not generally necessary to weigh liquids because 8 fl oz is always the same since you can't pack it the way you can pack, say, brown sugar.

Fun fact: 8oz is 240mL.

1mL = 1g.
So you can put your glass on the scale, tare it, and fill til it says 240g.

True, although liquids other than water do fall slightly outside of this due to their different densities.

True. 1ml of WATER weighs 1g. Milk is heavier by volume. Not a lot, mind you, so I still weigh my milk into my tea (saves getting another thing dirty just to make a cuppa) but 100ml of milk weighs 103g on my scale. So I would guess any kind of liquid that contains any kind of solid (so any emulsion, like milk or juice) would be different.

Silly question ... is a food scale different to an electronic kitchen scale (the one i use to measure flour and butter etc for baking)?

@Stripeytrouse same thing

@rubyted I am canadian and our cookbooks come in cups etc for baking...I have yet to see a recipe using grams or oz...and we are a commonwealth...

Careful with liquids though. Ounces (oz.) is a weight measure that you can use the scale for. Fluid Ounces (fl. oz.) is a liquid volume measure that you should use a measuring cup to measure out. Sure, though, if the label has the weight on there, you can use that too, but when most people say 8 ounces of orange juice, they mean fl. oz. or one cup.

I guess I am not very educated on this subject. This could be a really stupid question and probably learned during elementary school but, how do you know how much weight is in a cup or how much a serving size is in grams?

You weigh it. Nothing has the same weight per volume. Even different runs of the same thing can be different.

That's the whole problem - the nutrition labels if you look have serving sizes by grams, unless a liquid.

Even carb, prot, fat is calories per gram, right?

The volume that is given on the label is purely an estimate for ease of use for you.
But calories is really per weight.

Sadly it is also very off many times.

Even the 2 servings per package doesn't work out, and sometimes that's even using their stated weight of the product and how much weight in a serving.
Serving size 150 grams, servings per package 2, huh, the package weighs 350 grams it says. That's can't be right.
Wow, actually weigh it, it really weighs 400 grams - they gave me extra!
You eat the whole package, you just had 2.67 servings.
If that's 220 cal per serving, you just ate 147 extra calories if you relied purely on nutrition label and did no math or didn't weigh it.

And this. 10 times this.

Those '45 calories' slices of cheese... Really 50 calories each. Those 50g slices of bread? 60g. It really adds up. I weigh everything now (except yogurt cups because that would really be a pain).

Yep, sometimes my slice of bread weighs more than the printed serving, sometimes it weighs less. I use tortilla wraps and honestly (until lately, DUH!) I didn't think to weigh them. Well I did, it's supposed to be 40g, most came in at 42-44g. Not a huge caloric difference, but more anyhow.

I always wondered how people continue to use cups for fruits and veggies. How does one get something like strawberries or broccoli to 'lay flat' in the cup. It would be heaping? Cups are only good for liquids or foods you can 'sift off' (say you don't have a food scale) sugar, flour, rice, etc. But I still weigh my rice dry. Amazing what a pasta portion looks like when you weigh it! (dry!)

I did get some surprises though, that you get more cheese weighing it, you get more cereal weighing it, etc.

Sometimes the weighing gets tedious and sometimes I think "I'd love to just put my food on the plate and eat already!" but in the end I am glad I have my food scale. I use that sucker like 50 times a day! :laugh:

I have 2 food scales a traditional one and a digital one, can never be too sure.