Weighing meat

Weigh it raw, the cooking process may affect the calories, like roast beef

If you weigh it raw, and it loses fat in cooking so be it, you will be under calories, if cooking process adds calories, like frying, you would need to include the oil / fat in the food log, like 5ml oil for instance

This is an awesome post, I think you read my mind I was just thinking about that this morning. Sometimes I weigh raw, sometimes cooked but yeah I try to find the proper nutrition info on MFP by making sure if i weighed it cooked it says it's for cooked because it will say higher calories/protein/carbs/fat since it accounts for the water loss. Sometimes it's hard to know which entry to trust though even if they say cooked/raw today i was putting in 5.5 oz of cooked chicken breast and it said 105 calories which seemed too low so I switched to another and it said closer to 200. In general I like to be a little under my daily calorie goal for discrepancies like that!

So I know the MFP database has info on both raw and cooked meat. Would it be more accurate to weight it raw and use the raw information, or to cook it then used the information for the cooking method you used? Like baked chicken vs broiled chicken vs grilled chicken.

The more I think about it, the more I just want to weigh it raw because it's easier hahaha

Do what's easiest for you, for me I weigh cooked. I am cooking for more than myself so to weigh raw is to difficult in trying to keep track of what piece is mine. Lol! I sometimes have the scale right on the table, throw it in and then on to my plate. Done! Good Luck!

So I know the MFP database has info on both raw and cooked meat. Would it be more accurate to weight it raw and use the raw information, or to cook it then used the information for the cooking method you used? Like baked chicken vs broiled chicken vs grilled chicken.

The more I think about it, the more I just want to weigh it raw because it's easier hahaha

Baked v. broiled v. grilled shouldn't make any difference (compared to each other), assuming you're cooking to the same degree of doneness and you don't add any fat or marinade, or you account for any added fat or marinade.

Raw is probably a little more accurate, since a database entry for cooked can't account for differences in how done (or dried out) the chicken ends up. But there could be more variation in the raw chickens based on how much water weight the processor has added, although in theory that shouldn't be an issue with parts that are sold just as chicken (i.e., no labeling or ingredients list to account for any liquid "solution" added).

Baked v. broiled v. grilled shouldn't make any difference (compared to each other), assuming you're cooking to the same degree of doneness and you don't add any fat or marinade, or you account for any added fat or marinade.

I thought the same until a friend of mine (she's a cook specialized in healthy food) told me that way you cook the meat does affect the nutritional value. She explained something about the temperature and the cooking times. And as a example she told me that grilled chicken breast has more protein per gram than baked.

I weigh cooked, and choose the cooking method when logging. To me is just easier. that way. Some other stuff I do measure before cooking, for example pasta.

So I know the MFP database has info on both raw and cooked meat. Would it be more accurate to weight it raw and use the raw information, or to cook it then used the information for the cooking method you used? Like baked chicken vs broiled chicken vs grilled chicken.

The more I think about it, the more I just want to weigh it raw because it's easier hahaha

Do whatever is easiest for you...sometimes you have to do cooked because it's a roast or something. But having worked in the restaurant industry for a number of years I can tell you that to meet the stated calories, everything is raw weight unless otherwise stated...bacon is the only thing that comes to mind where the calories per serving are for cooked slices.

I thought the same until a friend of mine (she's a cook specialized in healthy food) told me that way you cook the meat does affect the nutritional value. She explained something about the temperature and the cooking times. And as a example she told me that grilled chicken breast has more protein per gram than baked.

The difference would be negligible and hardly worth obsessing over.

Raw is starting to make sense. Even if the meat shrinks, all the calories should be there. If not, I'd rather over estimate my calorie consumption than under estimate it.

So would it be safe to assume that vegetables follow this rule as well?

Yes for veg, weigh raw or the cooking method will affect the weight / calories, for instance roast potatoes versus plain boiled

Cabbage, raw versus boiled or steamed?

Along with a lot of the reasons stated here for weighing it raw, I have another,, I usually by a large package of chicken, like boneless breasts , then I will weigh and portion them out before freezing them. I will write the size like 4 oz. And the date and then into the freezer they go. Oh and this is also a good time to remove any fat etc before weighing and packaging them !!