Food weighs differently when cooked?

Gaygirl2120 · March 2017

Forgive me if this is common knowledge. But for an example I'll buy a pack of ground turkey & it will say a serving is 4oz & there are 5 servings in the pack. But once I cook it & weigh it out there is maybe enough to make 3 4oz meals. Should I just eat the cooked 3oz as my serving or should I be making extra to make up for what is lost during cooking. I hope this makes sense lol!

Reaverie · March 2017

Good question. I just assumed it was the before weight as it is difficult to know exactly how many oz uncooked equals 3oz cooked.

VintageFeline · March 2017

Weigh your portion raw. Food loses water when cooked and depending on cooking method the cooked weight may not be accurate.

That said, if you are making multiple portions, log it raw, weigh the cooked weight and divide that by however many portions and it will be correct.

This can also be done with the recipe builder, enter all the ingredients as raw weights, weigh the end product and enter that as number portions. So cooked weight is 800 grams, that's how many portions you enter and then you can weigh what you eat and enter that as the portion. 200g = 200 portions. If that makes sense!.

perkymommy · March 2017

I usually weigh after I cook just because I tend to season with an oil while cooking. For instance, I don't weigh a raw chicken breast and weigh it instead after cooking it and have at that point have also added salt, oil and other dry seasoning, which to most doesn't factor in I guess. To me, the main thing is that I'm weighing and measuring and so far it's worked okay the way I do it. I've always assumed it's best to weigh food as I am consuming it. If I'm not consuming it raw then I'm not weighing it raw - with the exception of food going in to a stew or huge recipe with a lot of ingredients then it's weighed raw because I do recipe builder.

livingleanlivingclean · March 2017

perkymommy wrote: »

I usually weigh after I cook just because I tend to season with an oil while cooking. For instance, I don't weigh a raw chicken breast and weigh it instead after cooking it and have at that point have also added salt, oil and other dry seasoning, which to most doesn't factor in I guess. To me, the main thing is that I'm weighing and measuring and so far it's worked okay the way I do it. I've always assumed it's best to weigh food as I am consuming it. If I'm not consuming it raw then I'm not weighing it raw - with the exception of food going in to a stew or huge recipe with a lot of ingredients then it's weighed raw because I do recipe builder.

I think it's more accurate to weigh raw - you can't control how much weight will be lose during cooking. Someone might dry their meat out, whereas someone else may have juicy meat. The raw weight could have been the same, but cooked weight would be vastly different.

ZephieC · March 2017

I generally weigh after cooking and when I look up a food item in the list I look for one that specifies cooked.

spoonpuppet · March 2017

I always weigh my food raw. If you really are concerned about accuracy, you should be weighing food raw.

Think about ordering a steak at a restaurant. You order an 8oz steak cooked rare, your friend orders an 8oz steak cooked well done.
Your friend complains that their steak is smaller than yours, even though they were both advertised as 8oz. That's because it was 8oz before cooking, and cooking it longer loses water and makes the end product smaller. It's still the same amount of meat and therefore the same amount of calories.

Just saying it's easy to think you have less when it's cooked.

nightengale7 · March 2017

I have a hard time with this as well, especially with things like pasta and rice. Sometimes the package doesn't label if the serving is cooked or dry! I usually just assume that the serving size listed on the package is for dry/raw and use that for my logging.

Food weighs differently when cooked?

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