Weighing Food - Raw or Cooked?
Baxie23
Posts: 34 Member
Should I be weighing meat when it's raw or after I've cooked it? Typically I weigh it raw but last week I pre-cooked a bunch of chicken and then weighed it cooked right before I was reheating it for dinner. Raw they looked to be 8-9oz but cooked they came out to 5oz.
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Raw1
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Raw is more accurate, but if you want or need to weigh it after cooking that's fine as long as you find an appropriate and accurate entry in the database that specifies it's for the cooked weight.0
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Great - thanks!0
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diannethegeek wrote: »Raw is more accurate, but if you want or need to weigh it after cooking that's fine as long as you find an appropriate and accurate entry in the database that specifies it's for the cooked weight.
This. If you're in a situation like that, just make sure to pick a cooked entry. I believe the USDA has a cooked chicken entry as well.
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When you realize you've been doing it all wrong.
Oh well, I know now and have been losing fine.3 -
I was taught to weigh raw. In many ways when you weigh after cooked the food has lost water and possibly some fat depending on how you cook it.0
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Intentional_Me wrote: »When you realize you've been doing it all wrong.
Oh well, I know now and have been losing fine.
I had the same thought. Thankfully we still have time to change1 -
There's a few things I weigh cooked, like Bacon for example. You just gotta make sure you find entries that are for the method you're using.0
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I've always weighed my food cook, so I've been doing it wrong forever. 0 -
I weigh proteins raw and everything else cooked. I guess I have been doing it wrong too. The main things I measure cooked are pasta, potatoes, and rice.0
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So you weigh a piece of meat before cooking, then it loses a considerable amount of fat during cooking. Next time you do the same thing, the meat isn't quite as fatty and it doesn't lose as much fat. Same starting weight, different number of calories post cooking -- but both recorded with the same number of calories because they were weighed when raw.
How then is weighing raw more accurate? I think a lot of people make themselves crazy here worrying over the small stuff. Given the fact that your kitchen and bathroom scales are not laboratory grade and the values on labels and in databases like MFP have inaccuracies in them, claiming that weighing one way is "wrong" and another is "right" frankly seems to me a bit silly.2 -
So you weigh a piece of meat before cooking, then it loses a considerable amount of fat during cooking. Next time you do the same thing, the meat isn't quite as fatty and it doesn't lose as much fat. Same starting weight, different number of calories post cooking -- but both recorded with the same number of calories because they were weighed when raw.
How then is weighing raw more accurate? I think a lot of people make themselves crazy here worrying over the small stuff. Given the fact that your kitchen and bathroom scales are not laboratory grade and the values on labels and in databases like MFP have inaccuracies in them, claiming that weighing one way is "wrong" and another is "right" frankly seems to me a bit silly.
Because cooking is the variable and can decrease the fat, increase the water, etc depending on the method used. Boiling a chicken breast will yield a much different cooked weight than grilling one.
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Boiled chicken? Is that really a thing?1
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diannethegeek wrote: »Raw is more accurate, but if you want or need to weigh it after cooking that's fine as long as you find an appropriate and accurate entry in the database that specifies it's for the cooked weight.
I don't know that raw is more accurate. Maybe more conservative. Most food is going to lose some fat when you cook it. On very lean items like fish, weighing raw probably is more accurate since you are mainly cooking off some water weight. Fatty foods like bacon or beef are definitely more accurate cooked. Poultry is probably a wash.
I don't eat my food raw, so I measure it cooked. The main thing is to make sure you log it as a cooked entry using the specific cooking method (or raw if you measure it raw).0 -
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I think I won't worry about it and will continue to weigh cooked, its still considerably less than what I ate previously and as long as the scale # keeps going down I'm good.1
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cwolfman13 wrote: »
I used it as an example for my point but would never actually eat it (again).0 -
trigden1991 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »
I used it as an example for my point but would never actually eat it (again).
I have a buddy who eats it frequently...but he's more of a "this is just fuel" kind of guy and I don't think he actually takes any enjoyment out of eating whatsoever...he'd be happy if he could just be fed intravenously I think.
I've seen him eating that and I just shake my head...it looks so disgusting all pale and gray and whatnot...the only time my chicken gets boiled is when it's in my soup or stew...and even then, I brown it first.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »
I used it as an example for my point but would never actually eat it (again).
I have a buddy who eats it frequently...but he's more of a "this is just fuel" kind of guy and I don't think he actually takes any enjoyment out of eating whatsoever...he'd be happy if he could just be fed intravenously I think.
I've seen him eating that and I just shake my head...it looks so disgusting all pale and gray and whatnot...the only time my chicken gets boiled is when it's in my soup or stew...and even then, I brown it first.
I eat vast amounts of chicken each day and could not stomach it that way. I'm not sure if I feel respect or disgust towards people able to do it!!1 -
So take baking chicken breasts accurate enough to just weigh after cooking or no?0
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Intentional_Me wrote: »So take baking chicken breasts accurate enough to just weigh after cooling or no?
yes, just use the cooked entry in the database. Otherwise the weight will be wrong due to lost water/fat.1 -
The biggest thing to do here is making sure that the nutritional info you use is consistent with what you are weighing. If the nutritional info is for raw (and it usually is) then weigh when raw.
Think of pasta. The weight will be a lot more cooked then raw, but the increase is all water. If you eat based on the cooked weight, while the package lists raw weight numbers, you will seriously under eat or under record calories. Steak and chicken will work the other way.0 -
oopsies- I've been doing cooked!0
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Depends on what you are boiling the chicken in.
Here's my recipe:
Put chicken in pot.
Cover with water or broth.
add splash of sherry/vermouth, if you want.
2 tsp of dried herbs, whatever you like.
1 bay leaf.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low. Partly cover and simmer 10 minutes. Turn off heat, let sit in hot bath 15-20 minutes. Drain and enjoy.0
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