Cooked VS Raw Chicken

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Dandman1990
Dandman1990 Posts: 196 Member
in Food and Nutrition
This is a potentially stupid question, but oh well. I know some foods, especially vegetables, have a higher calorie count when cooked. Does this apply to meats? Specifically chicken breasts. My question is, if I take 100 grams of raw chicken breast, and bake it in the oven, does this increase the calorie count, or will it stay more or less the same? From a logical standpoint, I feel that the fat and salt draining out should lower it, but I'm clueless about this; so I thought I'd ask. :p

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  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    edited July 2016
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    The calorie counts don't increase or decrease with cooking unless you add oil/butter/dressings (which also get added to the food diary). Basically, moisture from the chicken breast evaporates during cooking which causes shrinkage (Iwasinthepool!). The nutrition information on meat packages is generally for the raw product, so if that chicken breast has 40g of protien and 130cal raw, it will be the same cooked. The only thing that changes is the weight. Log meats as raw as it reflects the packaging information. Since chicken breast has very minimal fat, the nutrition really doesn't change.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    No. It likely won't weigh 100 grams anymore due to the water being cooked out, but it doesn't change the nutrition.
  • Dandman1990
    Dandman1990 Posts: 196 Member
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    Ok, thanks!
  • lore11a
    lore11a Posts: 166 Member
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    Well, I may be wrong in my thinking, but here is what I think. If you have a chicken breast that weighs 100 grams and after you cook it, the weight is only 85 grams, then I log it as 85 grams of chicken because that is actually what you are eating, not 100 grams. You have to take into account what you season the chicken with also.
  • callumwalker1995
    callumwalker1995 Posts: 389 Member
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    My packaging says 100g panfried so that's the way I cook it and it is so much easier to weigh after than before imo
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited July 2016
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    100 grams of raw chicken will be the same as 100 grams of cooked. No it will not weigh the same, but the protein value in the cooked meat will remain unchanged. You cannot possibly know the additional fat, water, etc. that gets removed from the final cooked version.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    @lore11a The database at mpf as well as the best database at https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods has many items listed as raw as well as cooked. For potatoes, there are numerous methods of cooking and many of them are listed. If you want to weigh your chicken after cooking it, you can and should find a database listing of that chicken cooked that way so that the weight you measure gives you the nutrition the database promises.
  • ConicalFern
    ConicalFern Posts: 121 Member
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    I always lose loads of weight whenever I eat raw chicken...
  • Yivs_87
    Yivs_87 Posts: 246 Member
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    ConicalFern wrote: »
    I always lose loads of weight whenever I eat raw chicken...

    But I bet you gain a 7-day vacation in a hospital with yummy antibiotic cocktails! :D

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