Why is measuring food using cups so inaccurate?
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estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
This is the site I have bookmarked for baking conversions. It has the most comprehensive conversion list I have found yet.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html2 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
This is the site I have bookmarked for baking conversions. It has the most comprehensive conversion list I have found yet.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html
Bookmarked for future reference!
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GoCleanGoLean wrote: »You know how people say to always weigh their food instead of using measuring cups to judge how much you're eating? Well I was wondering why measuring cups are so inaccurate. Like it makes sense that using a measuring cup to measure out 1 cup of flour could cause some discrepancy depending on how much the flour is packed down.
But what about foods that aren't so easily smushed such as cereal? Or others food like that. Is using a measuring cup that inaccurate? Do I really need a food scale to weigh out how much cereal I'm eating?
Two words, "Air space". It will vary from cup to cup for a variety of reasons when measuring solids. When you use a scale, it is not an issue. You can spread out the food, pack it together and everything in between and the weight will be the same. An honestly, once you get the hang of it, it is far easier than measuring cups and spoons.4 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
baking being a science is the reason that most of the "science of baking" cookbooks that I own strongly encourage getting a scale and using it. One book I bought in the 90s tried to make up for US cooks not having scales by specifying that *their* recipes require that you tightly pack flour into cups just like you do brown sugar. Most of the other ones just say "dude, get a scale if you want to bake all these great european pastries successfully."
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estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
If you get European recipes, all these quantities will be specified by weight. So go across the pond for your ideas and you won't have to guess about converting.0 -
I weighed out steamed vegetables (from a bag) and their "1 cup" barely made a 1 cup measuring cup just over half full. That was... 2 days ago? Some things are just so wildly inaccurate you'd be eating almost twice what you should.0
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And not weighing food is just fine, if you don't need to do it in order to be successful. Some/many people don't.
But here's the thing people often don't realize, if they want more precision than eyeballing:
Weighing solid food is quicker and easier than measuring with cups and spoons. You just need to know some tricks:- Assembling a salad in a bowl, a stew in a pan, sandwich on a plate? Put the bowl/pan/plate on the scale, zero, add an ingredient, note the weight, zero, add the next ingredient, note the weight . . . .
- Using something from a carton or jar, or cutting a slice from a hunk of cheese? Put the container or chunk on the scale, zero, take out portion, note the negative value (it's the amount you took out).
- Chopping something to add to a pan cooking on the stove? Chop, put cutting board on scale, zero, dump chopped food from cutting board to pan, put cutting board back on scale, note the negative value.
- Eating a whole apple, banana, unhulled strawberries, corn on the cob? Weigh the ready-to-eat food, eat the yummy parts, weigh the core/hulls/peel, subtract & note.
- I like to keep a few clean plastic yogurt-tub lids around to weigh small items, like a handful of nuts or chopped hardboiled eggs or something. Drop the lid on the scale, zero, add item, note weight, eat or use - just a quick rinse of the lid under the faucet & you're done.
Quicker. Easier. More accurate.
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Exactly. After being freaked out by the MFP community about not owning a scale I bought one and I didn't find the cups to be innacurate at all! However, I also didn't shove and stuff as much food when i used measuring cupsIt is usually inaccurate because people jam a lot into a measuring cup. Think of packed brown sugar vs. brown sugar spooned into a cup, only just reaching the top of it. Most labels give you the nutrition info for a quantity of food similar to the loosely spooned brown sugar. Most people like to jam as much as possible into the cup, sometimes even spilling over the side and certainly heaped up top.
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Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »Weighing food can actually be incredibly beneficial.
Example:
Recently i had been opting to buy store made bread because it's 50% cheaper then buying brand names like bens.
I bought a package of whole wheat whole grain bread and the nutritional information said for 2 slices (45g) was 150 calories.
Upon placing 1 slice of bread on the scale, which was not even from the middle of the bag the weight of 1 slice of bread came to 43g
A few thoughts came to mind.. Either the store made a typo in the grams weight and it should of read "90g" for 2 slices or the store made a typo and the package should say 1 slice (45g) is 150 calories.
When i contacted the grocery stores head office, they later confirmed that the bread was 150 calories for 1 slice not 2.
If i had not weighed this bread i would of been eating 150 unknown calories simply by believing the package saying 2 slices. with a 250 calorie deficit.. 150 calories pretty much wipes it away... instead of losing 2 pounds a month i would of only been losing a little over half a pound per month a stall in loss like that could result in a lot of people getting frustrated and quitting..
I've had this exact same experience too.1 -
Cups are great for liquid measure, but inaccurate for most dry goods. The density varies so greatly in many products. A cup of flour will increase in weight on a humid day and decrease on a dry day. Commercial bakeries always use the weight of dry ingredients when preparing a mixture.
I even weigh my liquids, because who has time for extra dishes?4 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
The USDA lists a cup of whole wheat flour at 120 grams, all-purpose white flour at 120 grams and granulated white sugar at 200 grams, but you could just look at the labels of specific brands where weight is often listed along with the serving size (at least on our labels).
ETA: brown sugar is listed at 145 grams per cup unpacked and 220 packed.1 -
CafeRacer808 wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
This is the site I have bookmarked for baking conversions. It has the most comprehensive conversion list I have found yet.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html
Bookmarked for future reference!
I also like this butter convertor site!
http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/butter_converter.html
So handy, measuring a cup of butter is silly and messy.2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »Cups are great for liquid measure, but inaccurate for most dry goods. The density varies so greatly in many products. A cup of flour will increase in weight on a humid day and decrease on a dry day. Commercial bakeries always use the weight of dry ingredients when preparing a mixture.
I even weigh my liquids, because who has time for extra dishes?
I've been told by chefs at my college that liquids should always be weighed because it's more accurate than using a measuring jug and most liquids have a density near one, meaning their weight in grams is equal to their volume in ml. Notable exceptions are oil, hard spirits and sugar syrup - don't weigh those unless you are up for doing some maths.1 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »Cups are great for liquid measure, but inaccurate for most dry goods. The density varies so greatly in many products. A cup of flour will increase in weight on a humid day and decrease on a dry day. Commercial bakeries always use the weight of dry ingredients when preparing a mixture.
I even weigh my liquids, because who has time for extra dishes?
I've been told by chefs at my college that liquids should always be weighed because it's more accurate than using a measuring jug and most liquids have a density near one, meaning their weight in grams is equal to their volume in ml. Notable exceptions are oil, hard spirits and sugar syrup - don't weigh those unless you are up for doing some maths.
I use gram entries, so no maths necessary!0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »
The theory is that since a measured cup of flour may weigh a different amount than another measured cup of flour that measuring with cups is inaccurate. The irony is that the people who make this claim never demonstrate that two cups of flour that weigh the same have the same number of calories in them. There is actually inaccuracies in weighing food as well.
Wait, what?! Did you just suggest that if I weigh out 200 grams of flour, and then weigh out another 200 grams of flour, each of those 200 gram portions will have different calories? This seems pretty sketchy to me. Have you ever done a bomb calorimeter experiment, where you measure the energy released after completely combusting a substance? They measure the Calories in food with bomb calorimeters, which gives us the maximum amount of energy that can be extracted by dismantling that food. Because all foods are measured the same way, we can directly relate this to energy released by digestion because an individual will always process food with the same efficiency given their hormone/gut bacteria composition/digestive processes are constant. That covers almost everyone almost all the time outside of individuals with very specific diseases (and covers those individuals from the point of disease forward, though the ratio of measured Calories available to actual use may have changed).
Because a Calorie is a very large unit, errors in measuring grams on a typical scale (which will be in the +- 1 gram) are quite small, under 0.1% , and therefore negligible.5 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
I actually developed myself a nice document with conversions for all the common baking items (flour, sugar, butter, brown sugar, cocoa, chocolate chips, etc.) and I convert all the recipes that sound interesting to me when I find them online and then save them in a Word document (with a link to the original recipe in case I send this Word file to anyone, so that I'm not stealing anyone's recipe!). Then, when I want to actually bake it, there it is all in grams for me!
ETA: For anyone who might find these useful, I "snipped" my conversion document into some pictures.
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VintageFeline wrote: »estherdragonbat wrote: »Ok. So, I do a fair bit of baking and baking being a science, rather than an art, how many grams of flour, sugar, baking powder, etc should I use if the recipe calls for a cup? (Baking powder isn't bugging me that much; most recipes I make don't call for more than a teaspoon, so the calories per serving will be negligible. White and whole wheat flour and white and brown sugar are the biggies.)
Or use UK recipes. Nary a cup in sight (I have one particular staple US recipe I had to go out and buy cups specifically for, they're not a staple in the UK kitchen arsenal).
Even though I've been living in the US for ten years, I still don't trust cups as a unit of measurement. Thankfully the majority of my recipe books are ones I brought over from the UK. Admittedly some of them are so ancient the measurements are in lbs rather than grams, and the oven temps are F rather than C, which led to some extremely pasty looking Cornish pasties and a Christmas cake that took nearly an entire day to cook.0 -
You don't have to weigh your food or use measuring cups at all to lose weight... unless you have trouble getting your portion sizes right and losing weight at the rate you want that is.
A scale is the more accurate tool because you can pack different amounts of food into a cup differently depending on its shape. 50 g of cheese will always be 50 g of cheese no matter if it is sliced, cubed, or shredded.
It is easier to weigh many foods like meat, cheese, yogurt, pasta, peanut butter, vegetables IMO than use measuring cups or spoons.1 -
Many times I've measured things out by cups and the food in the package never matched the servings on the label. Weighing it came closer, or at times over, the actual serving amounts. More servings per package at the right calorie amount. I'm thrifty like that sometimes.0
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And lets not forget that not all dry measuring cups are created equal. I had two sets of them. One was a cheapo plastic set from my college days, the other a metal set from a professional baking supply company. Even before I got a food scale, it was obvious that 1 c. was not the same between the two sets and which set was more accurate based on baking results.
I ended up re-purposing the plastic ones as scoops. I'll still measure with the metal ones occasionally - they're plenty accurate for good baking results with flour, sugar, etc. Never more than a couple of grams off when I do a double check.2
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