Foods like spaghetti?

You can use the recipe builder to work out the whole recipe, then put in the number of servings. For more accuracy, you could weigh the finished product, put the number of servings as the number of grams it totals, then put in the number of grams you serve yourself as the number of servings. It's not exact, but it's near enough.

I had spaghetti last night. You're right, looking online did not tell me how much cooked spaghetti was one serving, except for one cup. So unless you weigh out just one serving before cooking and cook separate, you are going to have to use a measuring cup... So far it's been the only food that I haven't weighed on a scale.

AlatarieI74, I gave up looking in the database after I found that most if not all were calculated from uncooked portions. And then those that said they were cooked had quite the discrepancies. Then whenever I did some research I learned that the longer you cook it the heavier it gets due to water absorption. So even the most accurate in the database isnt always.

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

Use the recipe builder. Then just measure out your portion. I never cook separately for myself.

This is what I do, as for the pasta itself I weigh the box's worth and add it as an ingredient to the meal, instead of putting things like sauce and noodles separate on plates right before eating I mix it all together. Honestly for the kids its easier since they don't make messes doing it, and it makes my logging much easier for portions.

As for having a separate portion of pasta, they make a silicone "pouch" that boils in water on the side of the pot so a different portion or type cooks with the rest but not included with it. I used to have one for my DD when we would have spaghetti it would cook her maccaroni noodles, was awesome LOL.

LAWoman72 wrote: »

Well, believe it or not, I'll cook my own pasta in a separate pan. It's not really extra work or anything - I mean you're just talking putting pasta into two pans instead of one pan.

Or if you're good at eyeballing fractions, you can divide the total by your one portion. Say, make four servings and eyeball your one-fourth.

Or weigh it, and divide the weight by 4.

I use the recipie builder for my most commonly cooked meals

Add in all the ingredients dry weight

Weigh the prepared/cooked food in total before serving

Enter the total weight in grams as how many serves it makes in the recipe builder and save for future use

Then weigh mine and log it eg I have 250g so I log 250 serves.

Alatariel75 wrote: »

Oh, you're completely correct, it's better to weigh raw.

Personally, I weigh the whole lot I'm cooking raw (say 200g) then cook it and do the math (so if the 200g is say 500g cooked, and I eat 125g cooked (1/4 of the total), that's 50g raw, and I log 50g raw).

But the cup measure will be just as inaccurate, possible more so.

I don't make spaghetti often because I love it and end up overeating, but this is what I do:

-put the meat pan on the scale and weigh my vegetables/meat and note the ingredients on a sheet of paper because the recipe builder is trash
-put the pasta in the strainer i will use and weigh it
-weigh the pan/serving bowl I will use and write that down (or actually, refer to the list of pans I have taped in the cupboard)
-while things are cooking, I start the recipe builder. I don't put in the water I boil. Maybe other people do idk
-my finished product ends up being 768 servings or something because I do it by grams

I know there are a lot of gadgets for separate portions but I cannot be bothered.