Calorie accuracy

I've found that on the packs of chicken I buy it lists the cooked weight

I tend to just barcode scan a lot of these packaged products and stick with the number given. I imagine they aren't always 100% accurate but short of hunting down the factory where it's processed and begging the production staff for every morsel of information, it's the closest I'm gonna' get.

I've still lost 30lbs doing it this way so they can't be that far out!

Most prepackaged single serve foods are consistent with labelling. In most countries they can't be too much higher or lower than the listed weight.

It comes down to convenience for me... I will just eat the single serve frozen lasagna and log what the box says but i'll weigh my frozen fish portions before baking.

I usually trust it, but I try to leave a little wiggle room. I make most of my diet natural foods anyway, and there is not much variation in the calories in "raw carrot"...

Recently there was a producer of yogurt (here in Norway) who made a statement that they unfortunately put the wrong numbers on the label, and the calories where much higher. So yes, they make mistakes...

I may become a little more strict as my weight loss slows or I hit a plateau, but for me personally I don't worry about the difference between what a package says & the actual weight. As others have stated, the manufacturers of the food have to be fairly accurate. I overestimate my food calories often so I figure it makes up for the few calories that pretty packaged foods may be off.

I can't worry about making sure every single thing I log is 100% accurate or I'd go crazy!

hamelle2 wrote: »

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »

I weighed a 500g pack of cauliflower florets last night and it weighed 532g

See! What if that was a bag of almonds?

Are you going to eat 500 grams of almonds?

A serving package of almonds would be much smaller. If it was over in weight it would be by a lot less. 32 grams is more than a serving typically.

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

There was someone on here recently that berated me for not weighing my banana before I ate it.
This, in my opinion, was crazy behaviour. I am genuinely treating this as a lifestyle change, so weighing a BANANA just seemed absolutely ridiculous and abnormal. I used my common sense - LOOKED at said banana, decided it was medium in size and calculated it at 110 calories. Job done.

There are other things that should certainly be weighed - Cereal is a good one! Meat, pasta, rice etc etc. Common sense on the weighing! But I'm not whipping out the scales to weigh my banana!!!

Bananas are usually the things that are specifically recommended to weigh, since they're so calorie dense for a fruit... I always weigh my bananas.

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

There was someone on here recently that berated me for not weighing my banana before I ate it.
This, in my opinion, was crazy behaviour. I am genuinely treating this as a lifestyle change, so weighing a BANANA just seemed absolutely ridiculous and abnormal. I used my common sense - LOOKED at said banana, decided it was medium in size and calculated it at 110 calories. Job done.

There are other things that should certainly be weighed - Cereal is a good one! Meat, pasta, rice etc etc. Common sense on the weighing! But I'm not whipping out the scales to weigh my banana!!!

My staff laugh at me as I bring the banana peel home to re-weigh it. And apple cores and chicken bones. It's each to their own

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

I just can't imagine myself weighing my bananas in the long-term!
With the bananas, I always 'over estimate' as opposed to under. There are all sorts of different results when you search it on the database - ranging from around 70 - 110 (which is what I log as it's the highest and I'm less likely to go over).

Of course, I'm not going to weigh bananas for the rest of my life - but I'm also not going to eat 1200 calories a day for the rest of my life. Some aspects of dieting are temporary. Once you're maintaining you can probably get away with not weighing bananas, if you're trying to lose weight you might need that extra bit of accuracy.

'Over estimating' would never work for me as I've never had any idea what people think of as being small, medium or large. I wouldn't say that the eggs I eat for breakfast each day are particularly large, I'd think of them just as normal sized eggs, but they're always 20-30 calories more than a 'large' egg in the database.

Marilyn0924 wrote: »

From what I have gleaned over the years, the packaged weight is based on uncooked product.
I always weigh pre-cooking, if it ends up being a bit less after I've charred the crap out of it, goody for me!

It ends up weighing less because water/liquid cooks off. It's not going to contain meaningfully fewer calories just because it weighs less. It's just going to be more calorie dense than when it's uncooked.