Weighing food

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Hi.. Today I decided to see how much a serving size was . I had a bowl of Cheerios and the serving size said 1 cup/28g. I don't have a digital scale yet but I used the glass measuring cup for now .. Are they accurate?

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  • Javagal2778
    Javagal2778 Posts: 74 Member
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    No, you definitely want to use a food scale for that!
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    A glass measuring cup? As in for liquids? No, it's not accurate at all.
  • Kmarie8212
    Kmarie8212 Posts: 22 Member
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    Food scale for sure! Before i got one i measured the regular way too and its so off i probably consumed 200 more calories a day than i should have.
  • aliry209
    aliry209 Posts: 22 Member
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    Oh ok thanks ! Digital scale it is !
  • VeronicaA76
    VeronicaA76 Posts: 1,116 Member
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    Nope. Use a digital scale for solids.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,831 Member
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    The digital scale will make your life easier -- even for a bowl of cereal. No need to dirty measuring cups. You can even add the milk to the cereal by weight. Just learn how many grams in the amount of milk you want to use. Then pour in slowly until you get the weight you want. You may overshoot the first couple times you do it but then it becomes second nature.
  • taziarj
    taziarj Posts: 243 Member
    edited August 2017
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    malibu927 wrote: »
    A glass measuring cup? As in for liquids? No, it's not accurate at all.

    Whether you are measuring liquids or solids, a cup is a cup. Now of course, is it the best way to measure solids? Not really, but it should come out fairly close, unless you really pack the solids in to that cup, like fill and tap it down then add more. One issue with measuring solids like cereal in a measuring cup is that they fit in to the cup different every time. One could easily get a lot more in to the cup if they hand placed each "O" and layered them. Though in the end, using a cup vs a scale may only be off as much as 15% either way. Though that 15% can add up throughout the day. I agree with others, just use a scale.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
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    I seem to recall coming across something in some food magazine about how if you were using a 'dry' measuring cup for 1 cup of water, you should add another 2 tbsp, because fluid ounces take up slightly more space. This was years ago, and I might be misremembering.

    At any rate, I'm using my scale a lot more than I used to. If I'm making a recipe out of a cookbook that calls for cups and spoons, instead of ounces, grams, or mls, I may just use the cups. And I don't always weigh non-starchy vegetables. (One medium carrot, grated, might be 25 calories or 35. If it's going into a recipe with a 6-serving yield, I'm not always going to be that exacting. Sweet potatoes? No question I'm going to weigh those.)