Pasta Servings/Caloric Count

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janicejean1953
janicejean1953 Posts: 25 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi,

I'm new to the measuring and weighing everything and right now I am doing really well; however, I cannot seem to find out how to figure out the true caloric count for cooked pasta. The nutritional label on the box of pasta gives the caloric count based on DRY PASTA. But, I usually cook up a big batch for my family. So, I have not had a bit of pasta since June of this year because I cannot figure out how to determine the calorie count of COOKED PASTA. What do you all do?????

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  • missiontofitness
    missiontofitness Posts: 4,074 Member
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    You weigh out the dry portion, and use those calorie numbers. The cooked pasta gets bigger as it cooks in the water, hence the product using dry weights.

    If you want the calorie count of cooked pasta, what I would recommend doing is weighing out (don't use a measuring cup, since it will be off) all of the dry pasta servings that you are going to use, weigh out the cooked pasta after it is drained, and then weigh out the cooked pasta into equal servings.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Basically that. If you only care about your own portion, pour out what you'd normally use for the whole family, weigh it to determine how many servings it is. (For example, if you are making it for 4 people but tend to make extra, and make about 5 servings, weigh out that, depending on the weight on the box.) Then after cooking, weigh the cooked amount and divide by 5 to get the size of one serving, which will fit the calorie information on the box, although the cooked pasta will of course weigh more. Then either scoop up precisely one serving for yourself or weigh what you do scoop up and adjust--if a serving is 200 grams cooked based on your weighing of the cooked pasta, and you just have 150 grams, divide 150/200 and log .75 serving.

    That sounds way more complicated than it is in practice, so I hope it's easy enough to follow.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I either weigh my portion before cooking, or when making a big batch, weigh it dry to figure out how many servings I'm making, then weigh it cooked to see how many grams a serving cooked is (dividing the total by the number of servings I made). It's not that bad.
  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,731 Member
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    It can be difficult when you're cooking for more than one person, and everyone is getting different portion sizes. Basically pour out however much you normally cook, and weigh that to see how many true servings it is. Then, when it's cooked, weigh it again and divide that number by the same number of servings you got in the first weighing. Now you know how much one true serving weighs. Scoop out however much you want, weigh it, and divide it by the second measurement.

    So, for example, lets say when you first measure your batch of pasta, you end up with 6.5 servings (around 13 ounces). Then you cook it and weight it, and lets say it now weighs 17 ounces. You divide that by 6.5 because that's how many servings there are. So, the cooked pasta now weighs 2.16 ounces per serving. You can get however much you want, and know exactly how many servings (and therefore calories) it is.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,485 Member
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    Do a test batch just for youself.
    Weigh out the 1 serving dry amount as per package instructions.
    Cook.
    Weigh again.
    That will give you the cooked weight of 1 serving as per package's nutritional value.
    Is that how much you will eat?
    If so you know how many calories you are eating if you portion/weigh out that amount from the family pot.
    If you eat more multipy.
    If you eat less divide.


    (Example below is not a pasta value in calories)

    ie:
    dry portion 100gm = 120cal
    same portion cooked is 150gm = 120cal

    If you eat 1 portion weigh out just 150gm from the family pot = 120cal
    If you eat 1.5 portion weigh out 225gm from the family pot = 180cal
    if you eat .75 portion weigh out 112.5gm from the family pot = 90cal

    Hope this helps.
    Cheers, h.

  • janicejean1953
    janicejean1953 Posts: 25 Member
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    Thank you all. This helps tremendously.
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
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    I weigh dry noodles, then divide accordingly. I know roughly a cooked 2 oz portion of spaghetti is about the size of a baseball. a 4 oz portion is double that.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    I need 1.5 serving to be satisfied, personally, lol.

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