Need tips on weighing for accuracy

HeidiCooksSupper wrote: »

The most accurate method for the kitchen is to use a digital scale and weigh in grams rather than ounces or pounds. Think of a gram as 1/454th of a pound -- a tiny bit -- but let the scale worry about that.

Now, a lot of times a recipe will specify a teaspoon or cup. If you really want to be as accurate as practical for figuring the calories of that, you can always weigh what your cupful is in grams and use that number to enter in your log for the calories. Most of the time, that sort of accuracy isn't really necessary.

Here's how I make bread, for example.

1. Put a small bowl on the scale and tare to zero grams
2. Measure the first ingredient into the small bowl in grams, e.g 600g bread flour
3. Dump that ingredient into the big bowl; put the empty small bowl back on the scale
4. Repeat with each ingredient individually

Doing this one ingredient at a time means I can adjust if I accidently put too much or too little in the bowl.

For other things that are less crucial if I make a mistake, like a bowl of cereal, I
Put the cereal bowl on the scale and tare to zero grams

1. Measure in a serving of cereal per the grams listed on the box
2. Tare to zero again
3. Then measure in the milk. Often I'll switch at this point to ounces because milk (like water) weighs about 1 ounce weight for every one ounce liquid. 4 ounces of milk by weight is as close to 1/2 cup milk as doesn't matter.

There's an old saying, "A pint's a pound the world around," but this only works for things that are very close to water in weight. It works well enough for milk, broth, etc., but not for lead weights. A pint-sized block of lead would weigh over 11 pounds.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

holybell wrote: »

I don't mind weighing my foods and all that but I can't seem to find a straightforward guide to weighing foods. I only know the guidelines for tricky things like condiments and what not. But I want a more defined guide for fluid foods vs solid, etc. I would preferably like advice from experienced individuals but anyone is free to post. I need all the help I can get.

With liquids, it is fine to use cups or measuring spoons. The only liquid I usually weigh is oil.

When I'm weighing foods, I make sure that the food I'm logging has an entry by weight. Usually this is easy for things like fruits, veggies, and meats. For example, if you're weighing ground beef that's 85% lean, you'll want the entry called "Beef - Ground, 85% lean meat / 15% fat, raw (hamburger)." You can then select the serving that you weighed in ounces or grams. *Edit: foods that don't have an entry by weight, I will create a food in "My Foods" and make the entry by weight. The nutrition facts on the back will have a serving size in grams next to the serving size that says 13 chips or 2 tablespoons or whatever. I enter the nutrition facts as they are, but I make the serving size into grams only, rather than use the number of chips/tablespoons.

If I'm weighing a recipe, I weigh all of the ingredients that make up my recipe (or liquids can be entered by volume), and then I weigh my whole recipe. I then weigh out my portion of the recipe and log it as that many servings.

So, if I'm making chili, I may enter:
1) Beef - Ground, 85% lean meat / 15% fat, raw (hamburger) - 1 lb (or 453 g)
2) Black Beans, Canned - 425.10 g
3) Onions - Sweet, raw - 100 g
4) Tomatoes - Crushed, canned - 300 g
5) You will also need to weigh the pot you're cooking it in so you can weigh the pot with the food in it and then subtract the weight of the pot from the total.

If my total recipe when finished is 800 g, I say my recipe makes 800 servings. Then if I eat a 200 g serving, I will log it as 200 servings of my chili recipe.