weighing food in grams or ounces

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disenamark3898
disenamark3898 Posts: 1
in Food and Nutrition
i was wondering how should I weigh my food in grams or ounces , I know you weigh food raw .

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  • itsclobberintime
    itsclobberintime Posts: 164 Member
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    Grams since it is a smaller scale than ounces. It matters for foods that are more calorie dense.
  • pope705
    pope705 Posts: 109 Member
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    I weigh in grams, but some food is listed in MFP in ounces so if I come across that I just convert (1oz=28g or 1oz=30g for easier math)
  • AmandaHugginkiss
    AmandaHugginkiss Posts: 486 Member
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    Either one. Get a scale that has both. I measure meats in ounces generally to the tenth of an ounce and powders and other foods in grams.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
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    I prefer grams because you can get more precise with it, but sometimes I do ounces if that's the only option in the database.
  • Athos282
    Athos282 Posts: 405 Member
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    I actually weight my food once cooked, especially beef after I've drained the fat. And I don't think it really matters much if you use the metric or imperial weights. Why are we so stupid in the US that we don't just get with the rest of the world on the metric system? I don't get that.
  • simplydelish2
    simplydelish2 Posts: 726 Member
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    Most food scales weight to the 100th of an ounce - so you'll have about the same accuracy as grams. Every nutritionist I've ever had has recommended you weight the food in the state you eat it (pasta being the exception) to get the most accurate calorie content. Many brands of chicken in the US have up to 15% liquid injected to increase juiciness - if you weigh those prior to cooking your could be consuming much less than you think you are.
  • BeTheChange352
    BeTheChange352 Posts: 253 Member
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    I usually use whichever unit is given on the nutrition label. my scale does grams and will do tenths on the ounces option (like 4.3) so either way it's pretty precise.
  • juliet3455
    juliet3455 Posts: 3,015 Member
    edited March 2015
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    My personal Bias is to use grams ( 100 gm) as it makes the portion size math easy especially when you use a scale.
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    There are always a range of choices and one inevitably has by weight
    5eatrrxlfipm.jpg

    If I can't find an existing Food Database entry in grams I pick one that has Nutritional Values closest to the food based on Manufacture Label - cross referenced to un-biased nutritional information from the USDA web site at and then edit it by adding a 100 gram reference and confirm the nutritional values based on Manufacture Label again cross referenced to USDA database ( MFP seems to automatically add a 1 gm value in the database). HINT if 2000 people have confirmed the nutritional value of an item it's a good choice, if 4 people have its questionable.

    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search

    @ blankiefinder and @ ‌arditarose Nailed it when it comes to Logging accurately and selecting food using the search feature.
    blankiefinder wrote: »
    if I haven't found an entry that lists the grams, I keep looking for a different entry. This [ Enter Food ] item is already listed a bunch of times. Better to edit and correct one that is already there than add to the database mess that exists now. :)
    arditarose wrote: »
    Weigh your eggs and find the appropriate entry. Two eggs at 50 grams is typically 140 calories. If you cooked them with olive oil, add that as well.
    Don't log 2 eggs as it is a subjective number, where 50 gm. is very concise.

    Read the information at these MFP post. They have links to multiple very good reads.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p1

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/10118-eat-train-progress

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1069278/acronyms-and-terms-for-new-mfp-members-v-6/p1
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    grams. meat usually in ounces, just because thats how mfp usually has it and im too lazy to convert :/
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Personally I use ounces the majority of the time.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
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    Either one depends what it is. Usually grams since that is what nutrition labels typically go by

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