Why would chicken thighs have more calories after being cooked?

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W_Stewart
W_Stewart Posts: 237 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am adding my dinner of grilled chicken thighs to my food diary. The packaging for my Perdue Boneless skinless chicken thighs says a 3 oz. portion has 130 calories uncooked, but then increases it to 180 calories cooked. I could see if this involved a recipe but we're just talking the chicken only!

How does this work?!?! My neanderthal way of thinking would assume a little fat rendered out and the calories would go down. Why up?

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  • W_Stewart
    W_Stewart Posts: 237 Member
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    Here's the link to the nutrition label

    perdue.com/products/details.asp?id=779&title=PERDUE%C2%AE-FIT-&-EASY%C2%AE-Boneless,-Skinless-Chicken-Thigh-Filets
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,994 Member
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    It's comparing the calories in 3 oz uncooked product, which has more water in it, to 3 oz cooked product. If you weigh one thigh before cooking, and then weigh the thigh plus any fat in the pan after, you'll find it weighs less, but the calories haven't gone anywhere (other than the bottom of the pan). I do think the label probably assumes you're consuming the fat (so either cooking it in a stew or casserole, or using the pan drippings for sauce). There's really no way for them to account for how much fat is lost in your particular preparation, so they have to assume you're eating it. It's generally most accurate to weigh food raw and use a database entry for the raw version of the food, because it's always difficult to know if you have cooked things the same way the database entry assumes (to the same level of doneness, etc.).
  • Keiko385
    Keiko385 Posts: 514 Member
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    Could be they accounting for the "small amount of oil" in the directions or is it from loss of moisture content in the raw meat?
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
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    It has to do with the weight of raw versus cooked. If you weighed out a 3 oz portion raw, then cooked that portion, it would be 130 calories. However, if you just cooked the chicken, then weighed out 3 oz of the cooked chicken, it would be 180 calories.

    The chicken loses some weight during cooking; if you took the cooked chicken in the first example (that you weighed out 3 oz raw) and weighed it, it would be less than 3 oz.

    So just use the calories on the label that correspond to the state the chicken is in when you weigh it.
  • CurlyCockney
    CurlyCockney Posts: 1,394 Member
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    My guess would be that the 3 oz of raw chicken isn't just chicken (it's water/fat/etc.), and this is removed during the cooking process. I'm basing that on the fact that 3 oz of raw chicken doesn't weigh 3 oz when it's cooked, so you'd have to add more chicken to get your 3 oz.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,994 Member
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    OK, I was writing while you were posting the link. The label is a bit screwed up, as it lists 6 g fat in both the 3 oz uncooked and 3 oz cooked portions, but somehow has that same 6 g accounting for 50 calories in the uncooked portion (reasonable) and 80 calories in the cooked portion (unreasonable). I recommend weighing it raw.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    Meat is mostly water. When you cook it, the water content goes down, so the calorie density goes up.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    Agree with others, the weight is different after you cook it, mostly water leaving.

    Unless I'm using it in a mix with other things (like soup or tacos or whatever), I weigh my meat after I cook it and log the cooked version.

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