Here is why I measure and weigh my food

Never really thought to check stuff like that - I'll start looking out for things like that in the future.

While I get your point, I'm puzzled by this assumption the weight is the gold standard by which we judge calorie content. I think both the tuna and the soup examples posted above are illustrative. Water is fairly heavy and has no calories. How do you know that the weight difference between 1 package and another is not simply due to water differences?

Chicken is another one that drives me crazy. The longer you cook a chicken breast, the drier (and thus lighter), it becomes. Does that mean it magically has fewer calories the longer I cook it? Certainly not, yet people on here insist all the time that you have to weigh your cooked chicken to be "accurate".

While I'm all for accuracy, short of a calorimeter, this is all just estimates anyway. Plus, I almost hate to open this can of worms, but our bodies are not just bomb calorimeters. How our bodies respond to the contents of a food can and do vary from the numbers a calorimeter provides.

While I get your point, I'm puzzled by this assumption the weight is the gold standard by which we judge calorie content. I think both the tuna and the soup examples posted above are illustrative. Water is fairly heavy and has no calories. How do you know that the weight difference between 1 package and another is not simply due to water differences?

Chicken is another one that drives me crazy. The longer you cook a chicken breast, the drier (and thus lighter), it becomes. Does that mean it magically has fewer calories the longer I cook it? Certainly not, yet people on here insist all the time that you have to weigh your cooked chicken to be "accurate".

While I'm all for accuracy, short of a calorimeter, this is all just estimates anyway. Plus, I almost hate to open this can of worms, but our bodies are not just bomb calorimeters. How our bodies respond to the contents of a food can and do vary from the numbers a calorimeter provides.

It's not going to be 100% accurate or even 90% in some cases but it's still a better estimate than cubing that chicken or eyeballing it. The same variations apply after all. The longer you cook it, the less water, the less volume it will have, the more will fit into a cup and the smaller it will appear to the eye. It's just less inaccurate than other methods and that's about all mere mortals can do about it at this point.

While I get your point, I'm puzzled by this assumption the weight is the gold standard by which we judge calorie content. I think both the tuna and the soup examples posted above are illustrative. Water is fairly heavy and has no calories. How do you know that the weight difference between 1 package and another is not simply due to water differences?

Chicken is another one that drives me crazy. The longer you cook a chicken breast, the drier (and thus lighter), it becomes. Does that mean it magically has fewer calories the longer I cook it? Certainly not, yet people on here insist all the time that you have to weigh your cooked chicken to be "accurate".

While I'm all for accuracy, short of a calorimeter, this is all just estimates anyway. Plus, I almost hate to open this can of worms, but our bodies are not just bomb calorimeters. How our bodies respond to the contents of a food can and do vary from the numbers a calorimeter provides.

Where did you read this about chicken? All recommendations I've seen are to weigh raw, for precisely the reasons you've stated. The packager doesn't know how you plan on cooking the food so the calorie information provided is raw, not cooked. It's a similar answer given for rice, you add however much water you want while cooking, but should weigh raw because that's what's described on the box or bag.

Where did you read this about chicken? All recommendations I've seen are to weigh raw, for precisely the reasons you've stated. The packager doesn't know how you plan on cooking the food so the calorie information provided is raw, not cooked. It's a similar answer given for rice, you add however much water you want while cooking, but should weigh raw because that's what's described on the box or bag.

Raw is not any better... Many commercial chicken products these days are injected with "up to 10%" of a primarily saline based flavorizer. Thus the raw weight will vary too.

Look, my point is not to discourage anyone, in fact just the opposite. I think some people take the calorie counting thing too far when this is all just estimates. Stress probably had more of an effect of slowing weight loss than does the fact that your tuna has 1.2 servings vs 1 serving per package.

My point? One, don't assume that weight is the gold standard of calorie counting and two, keep in mind that all of this is just an estimate anyway. Sure measure and weigh things (I do it too), but worrying about minute details is probably counter productive.

So you have specific information that the calorie count of raw chicken varies widely due to this saline injection? That's actually fairly interesting, care to share?

*Learning* about minute details is not necessarily counter productive, especially when your target deficit is small. I've been having a conversation with myself this morning about switching to black coffee to save myself 40 to 80 calories per day (creamer). Minute? Of course. Will spending a bit of time internally sorting that out be of help to me in the long run? Possibly!

Full disclosure: I usually accept the weight of canned and bagged products (except beans which I just realized the whole package was 16.2 oz not 16, but I digress). But then again, in other areas of logging I'm probably more conservative and it balances out. People have to figure out what works for them!

Where did you read this about chicken? All recommendations I've seen are to weigh raw, for precisely the reasons you've stated. The packager doesn't know how you plan on cooking the food so the calorie information provided is raw, not cooked. It's a similar answer given for rice, you add however much water you want while cooking, but should weigh raw because that's what's described on the box or bag.

Raw is not any better... Many commercial chicken products these days are injected with "up to 10%" of a primarily saline based flavorizer. Thus the raw weight will vary too.

Look, my point is not to discourage anyone, in fact just the opposite. I think some people take the calorie counting thing too far when this is all just estimates. Stress probably had more of an effect of slowing weight loss than does the fact that your tuna has 1.2 servings vs 1 serving per package.

My point? One, don't assume that weight is the gold standard of calorie counting and two, keep in mind that all of this is just an estimate anyway. Sure measure and weigh things (I do it too), but worrying about minute details is probably counter productive.

It's true that it's all an estimate, and this is minutia that we're worrying about, but the fact of the matter is that there are 15 threads a day where people claim to be eating "exactly 1200 a day and no weight loss" and part of the problem is that they are not accurate as they can be.

Yes sometimes the packaging can be off. I weigh everything except yogurt, it's a pain in the butt for me so I do go buy the packaging label for that one though .

Yep, packaging is often wrong. Sometimes it is wrong in your favor. I really like Amy's brand canned soups which are ~120-140 calories per serving. The cans show there are "about 2" servings per can but when I weigh them out it amounts to anywhere fromt 1.2-1.7 servings. So you could be eating the whole can and mark it as 280 calories when it's actually something like 220-260.

Little things like that add up if they happen all the time, that's why a lot of people on MFP assume people who aren't losing weight are logging incorrectly.

I thought I was the only one that had this problem with Amy's!

The FDA actually doesn't require food packaging (serving sizes/servings per container) to be rather accurate, so I tend to measure things myself. Much easier.

It's a pain though. You can't know what's adding weight - is it the liquid, is it the yolk/white? (for eggs, which are often 55g and not 50g here). So just more total guesswork. Heck for tuna or other canned foods I never know if the liquid is included or not...

I guess it's all very much an estimate anyway.

Where did you read this about chicken? All recommendations I've seen are to weigh raw, for precisely the reasons you've stated. The packager doesn't know how you plan on cooking the food so the calorie information provided is raw, not cooked. It's a similar answer given for rice, you add however much water you want while cooking, but should weigh raw because that's what's described on the box or bag.

Raw is not any better... Many commercial chicken products these days are injected with "up to 10%" of a primarily saline based flavorizer. Thus the raw weight will vary too.

Look, my point is not to discourage anyone, in fact just the opposite. I think some people take the calorie counting thing too far when this is all just estimates. Stress probably had more of an effect of slowing weight loss than does the fact that your tuna has 1.2 servings vs 1 serving per package.

My point? One, don't assume that weight is the gold standard of calorie counting and two, keep in mind that all of this is just an estimate anyway. Sure measure and weigh things (I do it too), but worrying about minute details is probably counter productive.

So you have specific information that the calorie count of raw chicken varies widely due to this saline injection? That's actually fairly interesting, care to share?

*Learning* about minute details is not necessarily counter productive, especially when your target deficit is small. I've been having a conversation with myself this morning about switching to black coffee to save myself 40 to 80 calories per day (creamer). Minute? Of course. Will spending a bit of time internally sorting that out be of help to me in the long run? Possibly!

Full disclosure: I usually accept the weight of canned and bagged products (except beans which I just realized the whole package was 16.2 oz not 16, but I digress). But then again, in other areas of logging I'm probably more conservative and it balances out. People have to figure out what works for them!

I think the point was that the saline injection affects the weight of the raw chicken therefore affecting the calorie count that you might find listed here in MFP for raw chicken. Example the chicken itself maybe 8 ounces but they might add 1 ounce of saline injection causing you to figure that you are eating 9 ounces of chicken when you are actually only eating 8 ounces.