Commonly confused serving sizes (pasta, others?)
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TheVirgoddess wrote: »It really just depends on how you log it - make sure you're using either the raw entry, or the cooked one. Aside from that, it doesn't really matter.Preferably, you're supposed to weigh it uncooked and unfrozen, just room temp or refrigerator temp raw. You can use settings for cooked, but, like the bacon, it's a crapshoot if your level of cooking is remotely close to that used for setting the info for cooked meat. Roasting something 5 minutes longer could add another 5% to calories by weight, because you've lost that much more moisture. Roasting it 5 minutes less could mean you're overlogging by 5% because you have more moisture offsetting the weight and increasing the distribution of calories.
Well I guess I could always weigh the meat frozen, then again cooked, and just use the average. That way I can be kinda wrong and kinda right!
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this thread is pointing out the confusing serving sizes but no one is posting what is the correct way to measure/weigh the serving sizes for different foods. if anyone can post a link to a reference it would be great.
Weigh solids with a food scale and liquids with measuring cups. The portion size you make of any food is of course entirely up to you. I reckon people usually people go by a combination of how hungry they are, how calorie-dense the food is and how many calories they have available. For example, when I have pasta, I like a great big portion, which is very calorie-dense once I add sauce and topping, so I don't eat a whole lot else that day (which also ensures I'm hungry enough to eat it all.)0 -
TheVirgoddess wrote: »It really just depends on how you log it - make sure you're using either the raw entry, or the cooked one. Aside from that, it doesn't really matter.Preferably, you're supposed to weigh it uncooked and unfrozen, just room temp or refrigerator temp raw. You can use settings for cooked, but, like the bacon, it's a crapshoot if your level of cooking is remotely close to that used for setting the info for cooked meat. Roasting something 5 minutes longer could add another 5% to calories by weight, because you've lost that much more moisture. Roasting it 5 minutes less could mean you're overlogging by 5% because you have more moisture offsetting the weight and increasing the distribution of calories.
Well I guess I could always weigh the meat frozen, then again cooked, and just use the average. That way I can be kinda wrong and kinda right!
Do you buy the meat already frozen and then cook it while it's still frozen?0 -
SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.0 -
SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.0 -
TheVirgoddess wrote: »It really just depends on how you log it - make sure you're using either the raw entry, or the cooked one. Aside from that, it doesn't really matter.Preferably, you're supposed to weigh it uncooked and unfrozen, just room temp or refrigerator temp raw. You can use settings for cooked, but, like the bacon, it's a crapshoot if your level of cooking is remotely close to that used for setting the info for cooked meat. Roasting something 5 minutes longer could add another 5% to calories by weight, because you've lost that much more moisture. Roasting it 5 minutes less could mean you're overlogging by 5% because you have more moisture offsetting the weight and increasing the distribution of calories.
Well I guess I could always weigh the meat frozen, then again cooked, and just use the average. That way I can be kinda wrong and kinda right!
I wouldn't weigh it frozen. Just raw (thawed) or cooked.0 -
One Pop Tart should not be "a serving."
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JenMaselli wrote: »SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.
Have you ever tested to see the difference between the serving size in grams vs the cup serving size?0 -
A dry two ounces of pasta does not cook up to be a plateful of pasta.
Maybe a Fiestaware salad plate, if it is a bigger pasta and you really overcook it. Maybe.0 -
JenMaselli wrote: »SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.
I haven't found measuring cups to be all that inaccurate when you don't cheat and try to crush as much into it as you can. However, even your best honest efforts can be off by some grams that make a difference...in theory. In practice, I have lost 80+ lbs using only measuring cups and spoons up until about a month ago when I got a free scale from work. So I don't know how big of a difference it ultimately makes. YMMV.0 -
Canned beans get me. I never know if a 130g serving is supposed to be beans only, or some of the liquid too - and if it's supposed to include some liquid, how much?! Typically a can of beans will specify 3.5 servings of 130g but if you drain it first and weigh just the beans you're lucky if there are 2.5 full servings by weight. But I consider the liquid to be waste (unless I'm making a soup or something) so I never know.
I've never cooked beans from dry before but I'm seriously considering learning how so that I don't have a brain explosion over it.0 -
I just did 3/4 of a cup of Honey Nut Cherrios. It weighed 32g (serving weight is 28).0
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CrabNebula wrote: »JenMaselli wrote: »SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.
I haven't found measuring cups to be all that inaccurate when you don't cheat and try to crush as much into it as you can. However, even your best honest efforts can be off by some grams that make a difference...in theory. In practice, I have lost 80+ lbs using only measuring cups and spoons up until about a month ago when I got a free scale from work. So I don't know how big of a difference it ultimately makes. YMMV.
To be fair, how much of a deficit your running will influence this. As your deficit gets smaller the little things start to add up. A half a pound a week goal is only a 250 deficit. The extra 50 cals here and there add up.0 -
Edamame in pods confuses me. For some packages, I'm not sure if the weight is with the pods or the beans only.0
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this thread is pointing out the confusing serving sizes but no one is posting what is the correct way to measure/weigh the serving sizes for different foods. if anyone can post a link to a reference it would be great.
I don't have a link...but typically, as posters have hinted at, calorie counts are for the raw product, so UNCOOKED fish, chicken, beef, pasta, rice, oatmeal.
You should weigh such products before you cook them.
Raw fruit...well just put it on your food scale and that would be how you measure that!
For popcorn, that DOES get confusing because sometimes the kernels either weigh more or less than the popped and that's just hard to figure. I opt for either single serve bags or microwaveable bags.
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It's not wrong so much as inaccurate. Almost all food is sold by weight, not volume. Nutrition information is calculated the same way. I suspect that servings are given in volume because most people don't have scales at home.JenMaselli wrote: »SteampunkSongbird wrote: »People measuring any solid food with a cup confuses me. I see it a lot with cereal and fruit pieces especially.
Why would measuring out a cup of dry cereal be wrong? If the serving size listed is 3/4 of a cup or 1 cup or whatever, why would it be more accurate to weigh it? I use measuring cups for this type of thing. I do weigh fruit and log it in ounces.
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Canned beans get me. I never know if a 130g serving is supposed to be beans only, or some of the liquid too - and if it's supposed to include some liquid, how much?! Typically a can of beans will specify 3.5 servings of 130g but if you drain it first and weigh just the beans you're lucky if there are 2.5 full servings by weight. But I consider the liquid to be waste (unless I'm making a soup or something) so I never know.
I've never cooked beans from dry before but I'm seriously considering learning how so that I don't have a brain explosion over it.
Yeah beans are the worst pain in the butt!
I don't really listen to serving sizes anyway. I use them to do the math but that's it... For me a serving of pasta is 3 ounces dry, not 2. 2 is a joke.0 -
Wow, didn't know bacon was measured cooked - that doesn't make much sense to me... I would prefer to treat it like any other meat, measure raw and if any fat escapes during cooking, that would just compensate for anything I may have underestimated - or go towards the fat content of the dish.
I agree about most of these, here is my take on some of them so far:
-popcorn - ideally make at home on the stove-top and measure the oil + weigh the grains. If I use microwave popcorn, usually (in Canada) it has grams and cups and I go by grams.
-canned tuna-for the type I use the drained weight, but going by either drained or not I get the same calorie content for the whole can, which is what I usually use.
-rice - most packages give both, I prefer dry because you never know how much it was cooked (water weight).
-volume vs weight for cereal etc - I prefer to weigh because I have noticed when I measure dry bulk foods with cups they compact a lot and I get more grams per cup than I am supposed to going by USDA/manufacturer's info.
-canned beans and fruit - I totally feel the pain and join the guy who was urging Health Canada to get their act together. Especially canned fruit which has a lot of (relatively calorie-dense) liquid - I'm still confused.
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Wiseandcurious wrote: »Wow, didn't know bacon was measured cooked - that doesn't make much sense to me... I would prefer to treat it like any other meat, measure raw and if any fat escapes during cooking, that would just compensate for anything I may have underestimated - or go towards the fat content of the dish.
I agree about most of these, here is my take on some of them so far:
-popcorn - ideally make at home on the stove-top and measure the oil + weigh the grains. If I use microwave popcorn, usually (in Canada) it has grams and cups and I go by grams.
-canned tuna-for the type I use the drained weight, but going by either drained or not I get the same calorie content for the whole can, which is what I usually use.
-rice - most packages give both, I prefer dry because you never know how much it was cooked (water weight).
-volume vs weight for cereal etc - I prefer to weigh because I have noticed when I measure dry bulk foods with cups they compact a lot and I get more grams per cup than I am supposed to going by USDA/manufacturer's info.
-canned beans and fruit - I totally feel the pain and join the guy who was urging Health Canada to get their act together. Especially canned fruit which has a lot of (relatively calorie-dense) liquid - I'm still confused.
My suspicion on the bacon is that it lets them put smaller numbers on the label. I think it's a pain, because then I have to measure and log the bacon grease separately - I'm keto, of course I'm using every drop of it!
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I am still confused about bacon. I get mine from a farm, so there's no package information (and the slices are big and fatty compared to lots of packaged bacon), and I used the USDA (no asterisk) calories for raw (458 calories/100 grams) which is a really depressing calories to cooked size number. So I rarely have bacon. But now I'm thinking I should try the cooked number and see if the raw doesn't account for the fat that typically gets lost. (Baked is listed as 548 calories/100 grams, but of course it shrinks a ton.)
Hmm.
I'm another who thinks 2 oz of pasta cooks up to a perfectly reasonable amount. I can usually eat just 1.5 oz and be happy, since I tend to make a sauce with lots of veggies too. The funny thing is that before I was dieting I'd always make more pasta than I really wanted (and usually overeat as a result), because I am so bad at judging cooked size. I think it's going to be far too little, but once cooked it isn't. For some reason I have a hard time keeping this in my mind the next time I make it.0
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