Riddle me this food-scale users....
abetterluke
Posts: 625 Member
I'm considering starting to weigh my food. I understand the benefits and I already have a scale so I figure why not be more accurate...worst case I lose weight faster...best case I get to eat more during the day (fingers crossed) -- however...there are a couple of situations that i don't understand how people can accurately log.
1) Eating out -- obviously you can't weigh your food...so what do you do? eyeball it?
2) Cooking a family meal -- I have a wife and 2 kids. I don't cook individual portions. Obviously if I'm cooking chicken or something I can weight the breast before I cook it but what if I'm cooking a pot of soup or stew? What if I'm making oatmeal? I can weigh the ingredients before hand but when it comes time to actually serve the food the weights won't be accurate because the nutrition information is based on uncooked (if I'm understanding this right) -- so 3 oz of oatmeal dry won't be the same as 3 oz of oatmeal cooked. Or in the soup scenario each serving of soup may have more noodles and less carrots (for example) than another serving. So how do you get around this?
1) Eating out -- obviously you can't weigh your food...so what do you do? eyeball it?
2) Cooking a family meal -- I have a wife and 2 kids. I don't cook individual portions. Obviously if I'm cooking chicken or something I can weight the breast before I cook it but what if I'm cooking a pot of soup or stew? What if I'm making oatmeal? I can weigh the ingredients before hand but when it comes time to actually serve the food the weights won't be accurate because the nutrition information is based on uncooked (if I'm understanding this right) -- so 3 oz of oatmeal dry won't be the same as 3 oz of oatmeal cooked. Or in the soup scenario each serving of soup may have more noodles and less carrots (for example) than another serving. So how do you get around this?
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Replies
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1. Eyeball it, use the closest thing in the database
2. Use the recipe builder. Weigh the entire end product. Count 1 gram or 100 grams as a serving. Sure mine might have 3 more noodles and 1 less bite of meat than my son's serving but nothing is 100% accurate.0 -
1) I eyeball. After some time using your scale you can eyeball pretty well or at least well enough to fudge it. I try to order stuff that is separate, for example I'll order eggs, bacon and toast instead of a skillet that's all mushed together.
2) Weigh the pot/pan (empty) you are cooking in. Make your recipe on MFP - weigh everything. Cook your food. Take the weight of the cooked food in grams and enter amount of grams as "servings" (weight of everything, subtract the pan weight). Now you can dish out the serving you want in grams and be somewhat accurate. EX: 114g of food will be 114 servings in your recipe maker. That's how I've been doing it, there may be a better solution out there. If you're going to be doing this a lot try to buy a scale that will weigh heavier stuff.0 -
If you're not having trouble losing, there is no reason to get into the pain in the butt that is weighing food. That MHO on that.
Eating out means guessing.
Eating portions of meals will require some guessing. You can take a good guess if you weigh each ingredient and weigh your portion, but it's partially guessing.
Even if you did weigh each thing and only you were eating it, it is STILL an estimate. All of this is estimates. None of it is exact. You just get a better estimate by weighing the food.
I'm a weigher and not suggesting that you shouldn't do it. It has it's up sides! But it's a pain in the butt and it's still not completely accurate, so if you're doing okay without it, it's not something you have to do, KWIM?0 -
If you're not having trouble losing, there is no reason to get into the pain in the butt that is weighing food. That MHO on that.
Eating out means guessing.
Eating portions of meals will require some guessing. You can take a good guess if you weigh each ingredient and weigh your portion, but it's partially guessing.
Even if you did weigh each thing and only you were eating it, it is STILL an estimate. All of this is estimates. None of it is exact. You just get a better estimate by weighing the food.
I'm a weigher and not suggesting that you shouldn't do it. It has it's up sides! But it's a pain in the butt and it's still not completely accurate, so if you're doing okay without it, it's not something you have to do, KWIM?
In general I find using a food scale far easier the measuring measuring cups and makes a lot less dishes to wash.
As other said use the recipe builder and weigh the final product, then enter your weighed portion.0 -
blankiefinder wrote: »In general I find using a food scale far easier the measuring measuring cups and makes a lot less dishes to wash.
Me too. Chop, chop, pop on scale, toss in pan. Simple and no fuss.
Doesn't help with restaurants, and the recipe builder takes a little getting used to, but still an easier way for me.
If I'm lazy and don't feel like recipe building but make multiple servings I do what I did when I measured with cups and spoons -- estimate portions. (Log .25 or .2 or .33 of the ingredients used.)
Otherwise, the answers you've already gotten are mine too.0 -
1. Once I got in the habit of weighing and measuring, I got better at estimating sizes as well which helps. I look for nutritional info online. If there isn't, I look up several options for similar dishes and go with a higher end one. Not necessarily the highest if it is more than double the rest, but I do choose a higher one.
2. When I make a whole dish, I measure everything that goes into it, then I divide it out evenly and make that a "serving". Like if I make stew, I'll use a 1 cup measure cup and figure out how many cups it made. Then I serve it up with the measure cup. I might actually eat a cup and a half, so i log 1 1/2 serving.
I would do the same with oatmeal, make 3 servings, divide the whole thing by three evenly. I might give the baby less than his portion
As for the portions might have a few more noodles or less, that's true. If you are eating more than one portion it will likely even out. And even if you don't, I don't think it is enough to make or break your calorie counting. A couple of carrots are only a few calories. Noodles may cause a variance of 10 or 20 calories. You'd have to really be off to make a big difference.0 -
1) Eyeball when you eat out. You get better at it with practice though, when you have a good idea of what 3 ounces of cooked chicken or 250 calories worth of bread is, for example.
2) recipe builder definitely. I enter everything raw, weigh the total product cooked, and put the number of grams as the number of servings... so if I have 250 grams, that's 250 servings. It will never be completely accurate obviously (as you say, if you have more noodles and less carrots), but at some point you got to draw the line...0 -
1. Eye Ball or use nutritional information from restaurant's website.
2. Weigh all the ingredients and create your own servings in the recipe builder.0 -
For eating at restaurants, I always check online to see if there is nutritional information available - you'd be surprised at how many of them have it. If it's a small local place, then yes, you're going to have to do your best estimation. And that's okay, once in a while. And estimate high, because it's better to be over than under.
As others have said, use the recipe builder to calculate the entire meal while you make it. Once it's made, I always weigh the entire thing on the food scale and then divide the total weight by number of servings, then weigh out that portion. You're accurate with calories!0 -
Restaurants for which nutrition info is not available: eat half, take the rest home and "deconstruct" and weigh.
I've done this with a couple of my favorite local haunts and then compared my estimate to similar restaurant entries on MFP. For things I order on a regular basis, I've created "recipes" for them to make them easier to enter.0 -
1. I always eyeball or just take the day off.
2. Mrs Jruzer almost always cooks dinner. I use a recipe builder tool and guesstimate the portion size that I ate. She's pretty good about giving me the recipe if it's something new, and I've done this long enough that I have most of her standard repertoire already in my log. Not perfect but it works for me.0 -
Sigh. ....came here looking for a real food riddle. I love riddles.0
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ilovecereal1982 wrote: »Sigh. ....came here looking for a real food riddle. I love riddles.
What has 70 lbs to lose and loves riddles too?0 -
abetterluke wrote: »ilovecereal1982 wrote: »Sigh. ....came here looking for a real food riddle. I love riddles.
What has 70 lbs to lose and loves riddles too?
Jack Nicholson?
<I jest
>
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blankiefinder wrote: »abetterluke wrote: »ilovecereal1982 wrote: »Sigh. ....came here looking for a real food riddle. I love riddles.
What has 70 lbs to lose and loves riddles too?
Jack Nicholson?
<I jest >
Damn...that riddle was way too easy I guess.
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My suggestion is similar to above. Weigh ingredients. Cook. Weigh cooked combined food. Even if you forget to weigh plate you can do it later, but tarre function is much easier. Now we have calories in total cooked weight. Seperate into dishes for family and one for left overs. Weighing yours as you go. Use a serve you want and just see what that weighs. % calculate of total to get calories. Reverse is an option too, so if I made a 1000 cal dish and I want 500 cals then I need to dish up half of what I made.
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1. Guess.
2. Recipie builder.0
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