Questions about weighing food

pussingtonp
pussingtonp Posts: 59 Member
edited November 24 in Food and Nutrition
Hi All,

So I have been weighing my food, but I have a question regarding accuracy as to when do you weigh the food?

For example -
Eggs, do you weigh with the shell on? Does the weight on MFP include the shell?
Meat, do you weigh raw or once cooked?
Pasta, raw or cooked?
Bacon, if I cut off the fat, do I just enter the weight of what I ate, or would the calorie content be different due to the fat being removed?
vegetables, cooked or raw?

I'm struggling to come up with more examples since I'm on the spot, but does anyone have any best practices on what I should be doing?

Replies

  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    I always do the raw weights and choose the raw options in the data base. You only count what you eat so if you remove the bacon fat weigh it after you remove it.
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
    Eggs - raw, without shell
    meat - raw unless it's a roast or a big cut of meat, then I go by cooked
    Pasta - raw
    Bacon - raw, or as directed on package (2 pan fried slices). Consider it a bonus or something if you're trimming it
    Vegetables - raw unless it's not an option

    Pro tip, place a bowl/plate on the scale, "tare" it and then weigh your food.
  • pussingtonp
    pussingtonp Posts: 59 Member
    Thanks for the quick responses!!

    This is helpful! I have my scale right next to the stove but I have been inconsistent in raw vs cooked sometimes its before it goes in the pan, sometimes it's as it goes on the plate.

    As for the Bacon, I removed all the fat and just had the meat, so I probably threw away about 40% of the bacon, but I still counted it as a whole piece as I'm more of a "worst case scenario" type of person - glad I was right!!

  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
    Most of that will depend on the entry you use on the database. Some things are entered as raw some cooked so it will depend on which one you choose when logging. On the other hand the difference in calories from cooked to raw is going to be so minimal that it really doesn't matter either way. As long as you are weighing your food you are going to be close enough that any calorie difference between the two isn't going to matter.
  • greaseswabber
    greaseswabber Posts: 238 Member
    I use either cooked or raw weights, depending on what and how I'm cooking. Eggs, pasta, veggies : usually raw. Meats: cooked weight if it is separate, raw if it's mixed.

    After you tare your scale with the bowl, keeping taring between each ingredient to reset to zero. Also, you can get a more accurate count of some foods by putting the food container on the scale, taring to zero, then removing what you need. The negative value is the weight of the food used. Works great for peanut butter.
  • M30834134
    M30834134 Posts: 411 Member
    It's better to weigh raw, then cook - but that's not always possible or convenient. When you cant weigh raw, make sure you select appropriate "cooked" db entry as the difference could be significant.

    For example, if you cook 3 oz of chicken breast which amounts to about 128 cal and weigh it after cooking, it will only be 1.9 oz but still the same 128 cal. So, if you erroneously select 3oz of uncooked chicken database entry for cooked - you will be consuming about 193 cal instead of 128

    When possible, I try to weight meats raw then cooked to determine by how much the weight has changed, then use the raw entry from the DB but adjust the weight according to shrinkage. The simpler way would be to find an appropriate entry for a "cooked" version and weigh the food cooked - but I found that "cooked" usually has a wider range of variance.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Raw is always best if possible, for pretty much everything.

    Eggs, you weigh without the shell.

    Bacon, I have no idea, because most brands give you the calories for 'pan fried' and that just varies too much. In the rare cases when I actually eat regular bacon (I use turkey - it gives you calories per grams as is, so it's easier to track), I just end up entering the number of slices and don't bother weighing.

    For rice and pasta, I weigh dry, then cooked, so if I want to eat leftovers I can just reuse the cooked weight as a serving size (I rarely do just one serving).

    I end up weighing a lot of things cooked though, as I cook for several people and there are always leftovers, but I guess you got to do what you got to do... meat always sucks anyway as you never have the same amount of fat in each steak so it will always be some kind of approximation.
  • Lourdesong
    Lourdesong Posts: 1,492 Member
    I don't weigh eggs, I just log based on the size (med, large, xlarge). Weight on the nutrition label on cartons of eggs is the edible weight/serving of an egg.

    Bacon I might weigh, but I eat turkey bacon and the brand I buy is very uniform so I just go by the slice. I'd only log what I eat. If you're cutting fat, weigh the amount you plan to eat.

    I weigh raw weight of meat and veg and pasta/grains/legumes. I only use cooked weights/cooked entries if I wasn't able to get the raw weight, and I really dislike doing that.

    I usually make a recipe in the recipe builder for pasta/grains/legumes. Dry amount inputted as an ingredient, water/stock inputted, salt inputted, etc. And then input the total cooked weight as the number of servings. Then when I make it again, if final product weighs more or less I just edit the recipe and change the number the servings.

    I do the same thing as above for my cooked and lightly seasoned ground turkey I want on hand to use in quick meals. Raw weight and seasonings are ingredients in the recipe, final cooked weight is number of servings.



  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    weigh everything raw, and only what you are actually eating (no no egg shells, banana peels, etc) - well, unless you eat them lol

    the one exception i make for this is pasta- particularly rice. hubby keep a big rice cooker with rice in it, so when i do eat it (which isnt really very often), i use the cooked entry for that brand of rice and weigh it out it in grams.

    i also use the recipe importer a lot, and in that case, just go by that.
  • pussingtonp
    pussingtonp Posts: 59 Member
    Thanks all! Very helpful! I'm excited to go weigh dinner for tonight lol.
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