"Why should I use a food scale?"
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For some foods, it could be up to a 100 calorie difference. So here's how that translates: if someone at just 100 calories OVER their TDEE daily for a year, it can result in a 10lbs gain. Think about it.
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Great post OP! The pics really prove that you must get a scale if you really want to know how many calories you are eating everyday.
This is not an option, its a must IMO.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.
You know that spoon I'm your kitchen that has a hole through the middle? That's how you're supposed go measure a serving of pasta without a scale.
http://cdn29.elitedaily.com/content/uploads/2016/06/27164439/Spaghetti-Spoon.png
Omg seriously? I'm going to test it next time and see how much it weighs
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Omg seriously? I'm going to test it next time and see how much it weighs
I would be super interested in your results! I feel like it would be more accurate than a measuring cup because dried spaghetti is dried spaghetti, but then again, I don't really know how it compares company to company? Feel free to post your pictures here when you test it!
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Wynterbourne wrote: »Yep, pasta is a frequent offender when it comes to getting more calories when using volume instead of weight. I made this picture when the subject came up a while back:
@Wynterbourne I'd never seen the picture you put together, I can see it's helpfulness for members. Cool, thanks
What a difference scale vs. measuring cups make on solids! I used to count out almonds, measure my strawberries by the cup etc. I don't know why... I had a food scale but this was way back in the day and I think I just didn't understand the importance and how liquids only belonged in measuring cups.
So you may be teaching members who have been doing this awhile the importance of the huge difference it makes!
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RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
Unless of course you're diabetic... then it would make a huge difference!5 -
Hearts_2015 wrote: »I don't know why... I had a food scale but this was way back in the day and I think I just didn't understand the importance and how liquids only belonged in measuring cups.
Important to note that liquids belong in liquid measuring cups only, too! I remember about 5 years ago, my aunt was baking and was using solid measuring cups for everything because "a cup is a cup", but they're really not because they're designed to more accurately weigh their respective types of ingredients. Weighing 1 cup of oil in a liquid cup is going to be different than 1 cup of oil in a dry cup. Rest in peace those cookies she was trying to bake.
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yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.2 -
TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...1 -
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cwolfman13 wrote: »
Yes. The longer you cook pasta, the more water it absorbs and the more bulky it becomes. The volume of 1 cup al dente pasta is more than the volume of 1 cup very soft pasta as long as you're not packing it down.2 -
TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
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For reference, I also didn't pack these down. I added 2-3 noodles to each cup at a time because I like watching the number on the scale move
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yellingkimber wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
don't mind him he is in the "don't need a scale" camp.14 -
yellingkimber wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »"1 cup of pasta" also depends massively on the shape of the pasta. 1 cup of macaroni weighs a whole lot more than 1 cup of rigatoni (big tubes with lots of empty space inside). I've never understood how we could expect "1 cup of pasta" to mean anything.
I'm curious how people would do 1 cup of spagetti dry----weighing is the only way to go.
You know that spoon I'm your kitchen that has a hole through the middle? That's how you're supposed go measure a serving of pasta without a scale.
http://cdn29.elitedaily.com/content/uploads/2016/06/27164439/Spaghetti-Spoon.png
I live in Italy and make pasta for my family almost everyday--I weigh it. It's accurate.0 -
Wynterbourne wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...
The pasta in your picture looks like it has been cooked. 1 cup of dry pasta makes about 2.25 cups of cooked pasta. So the cup that you are saying is 289 calories is more like 100 calories.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
I promise it's not as "overstuffed" as it looks. I had another picture with it all fitting neat and pretty in the cup, but the lighting was worse, so I opted for this one instead. Even if I took the pieces that were sticking out, it only would have been 3 g of pasta max to put into the 1/4 cup. 3g would not have made for two level cups.
If it is sticking out above the top of the cup then it doesn't belong there. It looks well rounded to me.0 -
yellingkimber wrote: »RedheadedPrincess14 wrote: »
A calorie is a calorie no matter the source.
Or sauce..... om nom nom. 4 -
TimothyFish wrote: »Wynterbourne wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »yellingkimber wrote: »So, I was in the middle of prepping dinner when suddenly, I remembered seeing a zillion posts of people not understanding why a food scale is useful to have when trying to lose weight. "But I use measuring cups!" I got curious, so I decided to weigh out a serving of pasta and then see how it fit into measuring cups.
Here's what a serving of tonight's pasta looks like.
Here it is weighed out.
Naturally, I realized afterward that I don't even have a 3/4 cup measuring cup, so I made do. Not ideal, but I could have stuffed so much more pasta in that 1/4 cup!
Seriously, look how much room is left over.
It took me another 15 g of pasta to fill'er up. If my math is right, that's another 48 calories worth of pasta that I wouldn't have been accounting for, which isn't that bad, but that's only for one ingredient of my dinner! I was thinking about putting bacon in the sauce. Info on the back of the package says "2 slices or 15 grams" - one slice is 15 grams, which I wouldn't have known without my scale. That would have been an additional 70 calories, which means I would have been 118 calories over what I thought I was consuming!
If you're one of those people that says "I'm eating 1200 calories and I'm not losing a pound!" I highly suggest buying a scale. The one I'm using was only $7 at Walmart.
It seems to me that all you have shown is that 2oz (56 grams) of pasta really is equal to 3/4 cup of pasta, as long a you use level measuring cups. In the picture, the 1/2 cup measure is overstuffed, but there is plenty of room in the 1/4 cup measure to take the overflow to get it down to a level cup.
Curious what you think my picture shows then...
The pasta in your picture looks like it has been cooked. 1 cup of dry pasta makes about 2.25 cups of cooked pasta. So the cup that you are saying is 289 calories is more like 100 calories.
It's dry pasta. Not obvious from the picture, but I remember her posting it somewhere else a while back... and it was dry pasta.3
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