Food Weighing Basics?

Hopefully I can answer your questions! Have fun with your food scale, mine is my best friend in the kitchen. It'll just become second nature to you soon.

1. Most liquids nutritional data is listed by volume and not weight, it is safe to continue to use measuring cups and spoons. When nutritional data measures by weight (gram or oz) that's when I pull out the scale.

2. I weigh packaged foods that have a variety in product size. For example, I buy odd shaped loaves of bread that when cut, every piece is a different size. Therefor, I need to weigh my toast in the morning because one slice from the center of the bread could very well be 2 or 3 servings, despite the nutritional data saying the serving is "one slice".

3. I weighed tortilla chips the other day. The bag stated "9 chips" was the serving but by weight it was really 3x that. It's a good idea to know how accurate the labeling is on foods as to not fool you again in the future.

4. Every single scale has a "zero" or commonly named "tare" button, even dial scales and triple beams, etc. Always turn your scale on and let the readout say "0". Add your bowl, plate, cup, whatever. Hit your tare button, and you should see the 0 come back. Continue to weigh your food now.

5. Will it make a large calorie difference if the nutritional data is slightly off for your protein shakes? This is what I usually ask myself before weighing something, if the serving is 50 calories and it is one scoop, chances are a little variation does not make or break my daily limitations. You don't have to obsess. But to ease your mind, you could do it once to prove a point.

6. Weigh your food raw, and log it as the raw equivalent here on MFP, down to every vegetable or protein or grain. Cooking releases water and alters cellular structure to every food and you will almost always have two different weights: raw and cooked. Cooked weight will not be accurate, depending on if you salt your food, cook it in stock, boil it, etc. there will always be a variable.

Sounds like you've got it covered now! Have fun!

1) Yeah, I've actually found measuring spoons to be more accurate & easier than cups. No waiting for the liquid to even out and bending over to look. I've actually had a few measuring cups that were way off.

2) I wouldn't. Nutrional information is going to be accurate enough for a situation like that.

3) Don't weigh crackers, they're all the same size and weight. You only need to weigh stuff in bulk that you're about to eat, like a handful of pineapple would be worthwhile to bust out the scale for.

4) If your scale doesn't have a tare function, throw it out. It's a must for any scale. I've never seen a scale that didn't have one, any scale you buy today should have it.

5) It's actually useful to weigh how many grams you're getting from one scoop to be sure you're getting something close to the serving size. If the scoop is accurate, you won't need to measure protein powder in the future. If the scooper is way off, you might want to.

6) It may be a little more accurate to weigh raw meat, but I need to weigh it cooked because I always weigh it before eating it. I doubt the difference is anything really significant, like for my chicken which locks in moisture when I cook it. It may depend on what meat we're talking about, though. If you're like me, you'll find that it's only really convenient to weigh cooked food and vegetables.

By the way, I bought this recently and it's a great item. http://www.amazon.com/EatSmart-Precision-Digital-Kitchen-Silver/dp/B001N07KUE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395448348&sr=8-1&keywords=scales+kitchen

As far as the protein powder goes, I always put my blender on my food scale (when making a smoothie), tare it, and then weigh all of my ingredients individually. I found that "two rounded scoops" of protein powder were not accurate with the gram amount on the bag...it was more like one really rounded scoop. Obviously this method will work for whatever you are putting your protein powder in.

Just to add the following tips. When you look for entries in the database, look for the 100g entries. That way if your apple weighs 68g you can just log .68 as the quantity without doing math. If you use an item often enough and there are you 100g entries, you may wish to create yours.

2. A lot of newer users do not know of the recipe function. You can use this to easily log an entire meal if you do not wish to log each ingredient each time. You can change the quantity for optional ingredients to 0 and rather than delete them from your recipe, that way one recipe can be tweaked multiple times or even be used for multiple meals if necessary and possible.

I just started using a food scale and I'm pretty shocked at how many more calories everything is as compared to the MFP directory. Eg - I've been using 43 calories for a medium golden delicious apple - on the scale it says it is 98. Really will add up in a day. Oh well - will make me exercise harder so that I can eat the same amount.

Dang girl you're on your way! You're definitely a pro already all that stuff about portioning the servings LOL. I am thinking of buying a small scale for work for those few and far between times when the need arises. Thinking of it. I know it'll be weird to bust out the scale at work, but still.

I have an extra scale for work, OCD I know:blushing: