Rice calories uncooked/cooked - Please help!

a71weightuk
a71weightuk Posts: 2
in Food and Nutrition
Looking at older topics on this forum, I know this question has been asked millions of times already, but I still can't get my head around it. Perhaps I'm stupid! :embarassed:

On a packet of rice, it says: "75g of basmati rice cooked as per instructions provides 87 calories". This is the calorific amount of the UNCOOKED rice, right?

The full packet of rice is 500g.

Say I cook the ENTIRE 500g in one go and split it into FIVE portions (100 g each), how much is in EACH portion? I have not added anything to the rice and have just boiled it as normal.

Now I'm confused because of dry rice calories and how rice expands with water etc. etc...

I make it 97 calories PER 100G PORTION... BUT if the rice has expanded (it will now be triple the amount), are the calories the SAME?

Sorry to be a nuisance, but really need some help here! Thanks in advance

Replies

  • Pspetal
    Pspetal Posts: 426 Member
    1 cup of uncooked rice = 650-700 cals
    1 cup cooked rice = 200 cals
    Rice will generally swell to slightly more than three times its size when raw. So if you boil 1/3 cup uncooked rice, it will yield a little over one cup cooked, which would be around 200-250 cals.

    To make it less confusing,
    cooked rice:
    1 cup = 200-250 cals
    1/2 cup = 100-125 cals
    1/3 cup = about 80 cals
    1/4 cup = about 50-70 cals

    It doesn't matter how much uncooked rice you use. Just measure the cooked rice while serving yourself. I use measuring cups to serve myself. The approximate values by volume for cooked rice is pretty similar for all kinds of rice.
  • ActuarialChef
    ActuarialChef Posts: 1,413 Member
    Calculate the calories of the dry rice (for simplicity, let's say 100g of dry rice has 100 calories. Then 500g * 100cal for each 100g = 5 * 100 = 500 calories in the whole pot.

    If you cook it with plain water only, the pot will still contain 500 calories. However, because rice soaks up water, it will weigh more.

    What I do then is I weigh the final product. Say it comes out to be 1500g of cooked rice. That 1500g is still 500 calories. If I want to eat 1/5th of the whole pot, I'm still eating 100 calories, but when I scoop it out of the pot it will weigh 1500g / 5 portions = 300g.

    Remember to replace the 1500g with how much your pot of cooked rice weighs. You can tare a bowl on the scale, and transfer the cooked rice from the pot to the bowl to easily figure this out.

    Then tare the bowl with the rice in it and scoop out rice until you get a negative number. (in my example, I would tare the bowl+rice and scoop rice out until the scale says -300g and I will have my 1/5th portion.)

    Does this help?


    Edited for typos.
  • AmrOnTop
    AmrOnTop Posts: 52 Member
    I was gonna make a similar topic to this just now. So I'll ask here: The nutritional facts of 1 cup of lentils: uncooked or cooked?? I feel like when I cook a cup of Lentils, it doubles up in qunatity o.O
  • Pspetal
    Pspetal Posts: 426 Member
    Here you go,

    http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-lentils000000000000000000000.html
  • ActuarialChef
    ActuarialChef Posts: 1,413 Member
    I was gonna make a similar topic to this just now. So I'll ask here: The nutritional facts of 1 cup of lentils: uncooked or cooked?? I feel like when I cook a cup of Lentils, it doubles up in qunatity o.O

    The USDA website (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/4782) shows that 1 cup of dry lentils (192g) is approx 676 calories.

    The website also shows that 100g of dry lentils is 352 calories. Then use the same methodology as my response above for calculating serving sizes of cooked lentils.

    And yes, the volume of cooked lentils is double or triple the volume of the dry lentils, depending how much water you use, how long you cook it for, etc.
  • a71weightuk
    a71weightuk Posts: 2
    Wow, thanks Pspetal and ActuarialChef - what a friendly bunch!

    Yes, that has cleared it up for me. I was panicking because I've been logging my rice calories based on the packet for months now. I had an alarming moment earlier when I was thinking about how rice expands when cooked and what a fool I've been. Thought I was consuming three times as much as what I have logged.

    Many rice brands here in the UK put the uncooked calories on the packet which work out more - if that makes sense? Which of course confused me even more.


    Anyway, thanks!
  • AmrOnTop
    AmrOnTop Posts: 52 Member
    I was gonna make a similar topic to this just now. So I'll ask here: The nutritional facts of 1 cup of lentils: uncooked or cooked?? I feel like when I cook a cup of Lentils, it doubles up in qunatity o.O

    The USDA website (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/4782) shows that 1 cup of dry lentils (192g) is approx 676 calories.

    The website also shows that 100g of dry lentils is 352 calories. Then use the same methodology as my response above for calculating serving sizes of cooked lentils.

    And yes, the volume of cooked lentils is double or triple the volume of the dry lentils, depending how much water you use, how long you cook it for, etc.
    I don't have a food scale and, MFP says that 1 cup of lentils = 230 calories. So if I make 1 cup of uncooked Lentils in plain water, I should be getting none more than 230 calories even if I ate the whole pot. Right?
    I consume Black Lentils id that helps.
  • Pspetal
    Pspetal Posts: 426 Member
    Sorry for the edits, but I realized I didn't answer your question.
    If you boiled one cup raw lentils in water, the whole pot would contain between 650-700 calories.
    If you consumed one cup of boiled lentils out of this pot, you will have eaten about 230 cals.
    1 cup = 240ml

    Check the website I posted. It gives you nutritional values for lentils sprouts, raw, boiled, canned etc. Lentils boiled is 230 cals per cup. Raw would be around 670-700 per cup. Most beans and lentils and grains are between 650-750 per cup raw. MFP has a LOT of entries for each food. If you think it doesn't sound right, you can double check on the website I posted. That's what I do. Hope that helps!
    Just to clarify, one cup in the US is about 240ml which is about 1/4 litre. I measure by volume because it is easier.
  • AmrOnTop
    AmrOnTop Posts: 52 Member
    Sorry for the edits, but I realized I didn't answer your question.
    If you boiled one cup raw lentils in water, the whole pot would contain between 650-700 calories.
    If you consumed one cup of boiled lentils out of this pot, you will have eaten about 230 cals.
    1 cup = 240ml

    Check the website I posted. It gives you nutritional values for lentils sprouts, raw, boiled, canned etc. Lentils boiled is 230 cals per cup. Raw would be around 670-700 per cup. Most beans and lentils and grains are between 650-750 per cup raw. MFP has a LOT of entries for each food. If you think it doesn't sound right, you can double check on the website I posted. That's what I do. Hope that helps!
    Just to clarify, one cup in the US is about 240ml which is about 1/4 litre. I measure by volume because it is easier.
    WHAT? So I've been consuming 650-700 instead of 230 calories for the past 2 weeks? That explains why the scale is so weird and the fact that this meal is so damn filling and bloating. So I should eat 1 cup of COOKED lentils to get the 230 calories, not the whole pot..
    Thanks a lot!
  • ActuarialChef
    ActuarialChef Posts: 1,413 Member
    I was gonna make a similar topic to this just now. So I'll ask here: The nutritional facts of 1 cup of lentils: uncooked or cooked?? I feel like when I cook a cup of Lentils, it doubles up in qunatity o.O

    The USDA website (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/4782) shows that 1 cup of dry lentils (192g) is approx 676 calories.

    The website also shows that 100g of dry lentils is 352 calories. Then use the same methodology as my response above for calculating serving sizes of cooked lentils.

    And yes, the volume of cooked lentils is double or triple the volume of the dry lentils, depending how much water you use, how long you cook it for, etc.
    I don't have a food scale and, MFP says that 1 cup of lentils = 230 calories. So if I make 1 cup of uncooked Lentils in plain water, I should be getting none more than 230 calories even if I ate the whole pot. Right?
    I consume Black Lentils id that helps.

    No no no no no.

    When MFP says 1 cup of cooked lentils is 230 calories, they're referring to 1 cup of cooked lentils. To get 1 cup of cooked lentils, you'd use ~1/3 cup of dry lentils. Using the USDA data I gave above, 676 calories * 1/3 cup = 225 calories per 1/3 cup DRY,

    If you're eating 1 cup of cooked lentils, and you don't have a food scale, then you need to use the cooked lentils entry. On the USDA website (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/4964) 1 cup of cooked lentils (boiled in water, with salt) is 226 calories. Same as my calculation above.
    WHAT? So I've been consuming 650-700 instead of 230 calories for the past 2 weeks? That explains why the scale is so weird and the fact that this meal is so damn filling and bloating. So I should eat 1 cup of COOKED lentils to get the 230 calories, not the whole pot..
    Thanks a lot!

    So, yes, if you make 1 cup of DRY lentils, you're making a pot that contains 3 cups of COOKED lentils and has 650-700 calories in it. If you want to consumer ~225-230 calories, eat 1 cup of COOKED lentils, which will be about 1/3rd of the pot you make.

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