I am sure this is a dumb question but

I think most on this board weigh before they cook.

I came to the message board for the first time to ask this exact question. Because vegetables and meats change weight, nutrition, and fat content when they're cooked. But weighing things after they're cooked is difficult or impossible. Sauces add weight, and vegetables are usually mixed together by the end of the cooking process.

Generally before cooking but make sure you are logging as "raw" instead of roasted, cooked, broiled, etc. Sometimes you will have things that are already cooked, like using leftover chicken in a salad, then search for an entry in the database for cooked and use that.

Watch out for pasta and rice, a bag may say portion size is x amount and x of calories, but that's cooked weight sometimes. So if you weigh dried, you end up with about 2 1/2 times what you should have in the case of rice - which definitely wont help the diet!!

It varies on brand, so just check the label. If the portions and calories are listed in cooked weight, then you can find the information on line about how much it is in dried weight.

With rice it's about 2 1/2 times the weight once cooked.

I used to get caught out all the time until I realised this!

just look if it says cooked,raw ,boiled,grilled,fried ,baked,and if its a takeaway check it says takeaway as that will be ready cooked

I ususally weigh after since it shrinks

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How do you weigh rice? It always weighs 3x more afterwards and the calorie input is confusing:noway:

Just make sure you line up to what the listing and/or package says - most of the time, the accurate listings will include raw vs cooked.

To the poster who asked about the greens....I tend to not even bother with measuring cups with my greens. If I've got my scale out and I'm weighing other components I'll note the weight, but it's not worth dirtying another cup when the calorie difference is so small - a cup of lettuce is what, like 4 calories? Don't stress about greens. (Disclaimer: cooked greens, esp in oil or sauce or something, are a horse of a different color. I was assuming raw.)

It always makes me sad when the meat shrinks!!

In so many way.... *nods*

I generally weigh before cooking, unless it's grilled chicken breast I pre-cooked. Then I just make sure to log it as "chicken breast grilled." Enjoy your new scale!

There is no such thing as a dumb question :-) I say weigh after. That's the amount you are actually consuming.

If you live alone, you can weigh food when you buy it.

Counting kilojoules always drove me crazy, too much detail and I ended up obsessing about food because I had to weigh every damn thing that I was preparing.

My solution was to buy food and just weigh it when it arrives in the house, and divide the kilojoules by the number of days I expected to eat it. So if I bought a bag of apples, I just weighed the bag and then divided by say 5 days to eat them, makes life much simpler. Obviously you can't do this if you live with someone, and you'd need to allow for throwing out food that was uneaten, but it made my life much easier.

Watch out for pasta and rice, a bag may say portion size is x amount and x of calories, but that's cooked weight sometimes. So if you weigh dried, you end up with about 2 1/2 times what you should have in the case of rice - which definitely wont help the diet!!

It varies on brand, so just check the label. If the portions and calories are listed in cooked weight, then you can find the information on line about how much it is in dried weight.

With rice it's about 2 1/2 times the weight once cooked.

I used to get caught out all the time until I realised this!

I look on the box and see how many servings it makes, then divide that by the dry weight on the box. A box of pasta that makes 10 servings and is 16 oz. means that one serving is 1.6 oz dry. I write it on the box so I remember.