Cooking oil absorption

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JCRendle
JCRendle Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
When I'm cooking I try to use FryLight spray, but when I'm visiting family and they make a meal, they just pour sunflower oil from a container into the pan and fry the meat - my question is...

I know I tbps oil is about 120 calories - but do I count 120 calories? Surely only a small percentage of the oil is absorbed into the meat and the calories added.

So when I'm roughly calculating the calories, how much do I add for the oil? A percentage of the oil used or the whole lot? I don't want to be rude and ask them to use less oil.

Replies

  • br3adman
    br3adman Posts: 284 Member
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    Just pan sear your meat. They will most likely want to try it so make extra. I know when i started dieting my friends started to come over at dinner time more lol
  • JCRendle
    JCRendle Posts: 4 Member
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    I do occasionally, and its good. But I was looking for calorie advice on adding unmeasured oil and its absorption to meat.

    Thank you for the advice anyways :smile:
  • swirlybee
    swirlybee Posts: 497 Member
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    Personally, I would log the full tbsp to give me a lot of room for error.
  • Kexessa
    Kexessa Posts: 346 Member
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    If oil is being poured into a pan and (breaded?) meat fried in it, it is absorbing a lot more oil than you think. Watch as they cook at how the oil level goes down as the breading soaks it up. You could try removing the breading from and just having the meat since the breading is where the majority of the oil is.

    I've never just straight up fried meat with no breading in so much oil so I don't have any ideas for that.
  • Ideabaker
    Ideabaker Posts: 508 Member
    edited July 2015
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    Allrecipes site often adds the following message on fried food recipe nutritional information: "We have determined the nutritional value of oil for frying based on a retention value of 10% after cooking. The exact amount may vary depending on cook time and temperature, ingredient density, and the specific type of oil used."

    If the oil is not very hot, more oil could be absorbed. If the surface area of the food is greater, more will also be absorbed. Those are huge variables over which you'd have no control as a dinner guest.

    I am very curious as to where they came up with their "10%" formula.

    I'm with @swirlybee , I'd just add the whole tablespoon to be on the safe side. You mentioned that the oil calculation is only an issue when relatives are cooking for you, and perhaps that is not often enough to put a dent in your weight loss plans (as @br3adman says, you could always offer to cook for them now and then!).

    I also agree with @Kexessa on removing any breading before eating meat (because the breading definitely sops up much of the oil). I do that whenever I find myself offered breaded and fried fare.

    Best of luck with your weight loss.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    10% my *kitten*. Ten percent is total BS. As mentioned, breaded things, especially, pick up loads of oil. Who are they kidding?

    I suppose you could weigh a paper towel, tare, soak up the remaining oil (being ever so careful to get nothing else on the PT) and then weigh the remainder and deduct that amount.

    I just log the oil. I don't use a ton of oil, though.
  • JCRendle
    JCRendle Posts: 4 Member
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    Definitely not breaded, rarely eat breaded meats anyway, I'm not talking deep fried, more frying pork loin steaks, chicken breasts etc in oil.
  • JCRendle
    JCRendle Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you for the replies so far :D

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