Raw or cooked weights for calculating calories?

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Plumpcrazy
Plumpcrazy Posts: 7 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Do you normally calculate calories based on the raw weight of ingredients or cooked?
Does it make a difference?

I only ask as yesterday I baked some sweet potato wedges which went in the oven at 245g but came out at 85g which was a much greater weight difference than I would have guessed & now I'm getting myself confused about it.

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  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    I prefer to use the raw weight because I find to to be easier/more accurate for me. But it should be fine as long as you're choosing an accurate entry that specifies raw or cooked.
  • comptonelizabeth
    comptonelizabeth Posts: 1,701 Member
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    They lose water when cooked which probably accounts for it. I just posted a similar question!
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Plumpcrazy wrote: »
    Do you normally calculate calories based on the raw weight of ingredients or cooked?
    Does it make a difference?

    I only ask as yesterday I baked some sweet potato wedges which went in the oven at 245g but came out at 85g which was a much greater weight difference than I would have guessed & now I'm getting myself confused about it.

    That seems like a really unlikely difference -- I'd expect that you misread the scale on one end or the other.

    That said, I normally use raw when possible but as long as you find a cooked entry either is fine.
  • Plumpcrazy
    Plumpcrazy Posts: 7 Member
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    Thank you. I think what has confused me was I scanned the barcode of the sweet potatos & it was roughly 1 cal per gram....so the "before & after" cals were quite different.

    I think I will stick to raw weights....& make sure I read my weighing scales correctly

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