Log Raw weight over Cooked weight (whenever possible)
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paperpudding wrote: »How can cooking add 10%?
If I have a raw ingredient, say, potatoes, and I weigh them raw and then cook them in boiling water, where does the extra 10% come from?
If course, if you cook in oil or suchlike, the oil would add to the total but you could add that in separately, it's not the actual potato gaining 10% of calories.
The fact that going by weight, you could lose some non-calorie water weight, so if you keep the weight the same you ate, you are eating more of the product and less water - so more calories.
Opposite of the bad discovery same make when they read the pasta label wrong.
They see say 50 g and weigh that much serving out of cooked pasta, but it's supposed to be pre-cooked.
So they get hardly any pasta since most of the weight is water now. Non-calorie water.
So in reality they are eating probably 50% of the stated calories.
Now go the other direction where water is lost.0 -
That's not what I was doing though - in my example I was weighing a raw potato, logging at, say 100 g raw potato, then cooking it and eating it without weighing again.
The same potato can't have gained an extra 10% of calories in the cooking process using just plain water.0 -
Okay, so I did a quick search regarding this topic and here's what I understand so far.paperpudding wrote: »That's not what I was doing though - in my example I was weighing a raw potato, logging at, say 100 g raw potato, then cooking it and eating it without weighing again.
The same potato can't have gained an extra 10% of calories in the cooking process using just plain water.
There is an argument put forth that certain foods gain calories when cooked, but that's not exactly what the articles are saying about the 1 research study I found.
Instead what they are saying is that cooking alters the starches, which does one of two things according to the writers.
One, it hypothetically increases the energy as part of the chemical reaction in the starch that converts insoluble sugars to a soluble state.
Two, it hypothetically reduces the Diet Induced Thermogenesis, meaning it takes our bodies less energy expenditure to break the calories down to a useable format.
Mind you, that's not the research itself. It's articles written on the research, so take it with a big grain of salt. Also, the 1 research study that I found was done in mice, not people, and it looked at weight gain differences in those mice with cooked food diets versus raw food diets.
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paperpudding wrote: »That's not what I was doing though - in my example I was weighing a raw potato, logging at, say 100 g raw potato, then cooking it and eating it without weighing again.
The same potato can't have gained an extra 10% of calories in the cooking process using just plain water.
That is true - 1 potato.
You said potatoes though, and gave a description of exactly how you could be weighing out the same amount of food.
So divide your batch of potatoes say in to 2 equal groups by weight.
Now weigh out 400 g for a serving and call that raw and do the math with nutrition label as to how many calories per 100 g and total calories you'd eat.
Now cook that other batch as described in some water, and then weigh out 400 g when done for your serving.
If you were to still use the raw nutrition label, you would be wrong because it would include water weight dropping. Because you'd actually be eating more potato and less water in the cooked process.
From what I've read, even with plain water moisture is driven out of the potato - it doesn't soak more water up.
You could mash and beat more moisture in though.
So this is only when you go by weight that the 10% extra (if water is driven out) calories would appear. Or whatever it happens to be for the food being talked about.
Going by quantity - like the exact same 1 potato - it does not happen. But the weight of that 1 potato should drop.
Or the same 100 strands of spaghetti that weigh 25 g dry, but 150 g cooked, does not happen. Same 100 strands.
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It doesn't matter whether it was 1potato or potatoes - what I meant was I weigh the raw ingredient and then cook and eat entire quantity. There is no cooking rest later and weighing separately.0
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EvgeniZyntx wrote: »And remember that cooking and ripeness can add +10% calories (or more) for certain things. It isn't perfect, keep it in mind.
@EvgeniZyntx , could you shed a bit more light on this? As you can see, much interest...0 -
My dietitian disagrees with you and suggests using cooked entries when possible. It often isn't possible, because things get mixed together, but that's what she suggests: Log what you eat.
Her recommendations are for what you actually eat, not for what you start out with, and her calorie counts reflect that. When you are not following a specific calorie plan (just trying to get to a certain number of total calories) it is more accurate for logging purposes to log meat as raw because the finished weight varies depending on the cooking method. An 8 oz steak grilled to medium rare will weigh more than the exact same steak grilled to medium well. 4 oz of chicken breast pan fried will weigh less than the same amount incorporated into a stew. Some cooking methods retain the water and fat better than other cooking methods so that is why logging meat already cooked is less accurate.
If it is working for you, great. Keep doing what you are doing. Just understand it is less accurate in general.0 -
EvgeniZyntx wrote: »And remember that cooking and ripeness can add +10% calories (or more) for certain things. It isn't perfect, keep it in mind.
@EvgeniZyntx , could you shed a bit more light on this? As you can see, much interest...
For many things, fruit especially, the riper it is, the more the sugars have developed so the more calories it has compared to a less ripe version of the same thing.0 -
Calories, as are all nutrients, are the result of mathematics. The cooking method does indeed affect a nutrient, and all the methods, length of time, and heat applied may result in different nutrient values. This applies to a food item such as an egg, a vegetable, a fruit, as well as processed foods and mixed foods in a recipe. An available USDA publication describes these factors in ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/retn/retn06.pdf0
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This pdf article does not apply to the topic of caloric changes in Food when cooked. It is speaking about retention of micronutrients only.Calories, as are all nutrients, are the result of mathematics. The cooking method does indeed affect a nutrient, and all the methods, length of time, and heat applied may result in different nutrient values. This applies to a food item such as an egg, a vegetable, a fruit, as well as processed foods and mixed foods in a recipe. An available USDA publication describes these factors in ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/retn/retn06.pdf0 -
EvgeniZyntx wrote: »And remember that cooking and ripeness can add +10% calories (or more) for certain things. It isn't perfect, keep it in mind.
@EvgeniZyntx , could you shed a bit more light on this? As you can see, much interest...
For some foods, cooking makes more of the contained calories bioavailable, meaning you absorb more of the calories than if you ate them raw.
I don't know if bioavailability is 100% taken into account in raw foods or if the calorie count for them is just the total amount of calories in it.0 -
OK, potentially stupid question, can I use the formula in the first post for a cut of meat with bone in - such as a whole roasting chicken or leg of lamb, or does the bone weight throw the numbers off? (I feel like a dimwit needing to ask, but I have a lamb roast in my freezer that I've been putting off cooking for the last 3 weeks because it's too hard to log
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They do have bone-in calories in the USDA database. I haven't looked at the particulars on them.OK, potentially stupid question, can I use the formula in the first post for a cut of meat with bone in - such as a whole roasting chicken or leg of lamb, or does the bone weight throw the numbers off? (I feel like a dimwit needing to ask, but I have a lamb roast in my freezer that I've been putting off cooking for the last 3 weeks because it's too hard to log )
For the formulas I provided, you will need weights without the bone. The weight of the bone should not significantly change with cooking, so just cut it out afterwards and weigh it. Then subtract that weight from the raw weight. Finally, you can weight the cooked product without it.0 -
Thanks! That's what I needed to know. Simple once you know how but mind boggling when you don't.
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paperpudding wrote: »It doesn't matter whether it was 1potato or potatoes - what I meant was I weigh the raw ingredient and then cook and eat entire quantity. There is no cooking rest later and weighing separately.
In that case there is no change if you eat the entire amount.
And might reread what I wrote - I was giving example of WHY there would be a change in calories if you weighed the same amount raw or cooked and thought 1 nutrition label database value was correct for both.
Which is what the 10% estimate was thrown out for.
Basically the fact that if you are eating a more calorie dense piece of food after cooking because you didn't take into account the loss of water when weighing - you'll be off on calories.0
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