Double Check my Raw to Cooked Food Formula.

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Nedgyx
Nedgyx Posts: 16 Member
edited April 2018 in Food and Nutrition
When I was bored at work I devised this formula that allows you to create an entry of your specific food after it's cooked. Instead of some generic cooked brown rice, you can use your brown rice.

I will use the example of my Sun Rice Medium Grain Brown Rice.

Here's the formula.

Weigh raw food.
Cook and allow for maximum stretch.
Go to https://percentagecalculator.net
Use the increase/decrease calculator.
In the "from" column (first) input the cooked food weight.
In the "to" column (second) input the raw food weight.
Minus that percentage decrease by 100.
Times the nutritional values by the subtracted decrease.

Example:

200g of Brown Rice.
Cooked and settled it weights 500g.
60% decrease
100-60=40
(Using the serving size of 70 grams, nutritional information)
(calories) 249x0.4=99.6, (carbs) 50.8x0.4=20.3, (fat) 1.8x0.4=0.7, (protein) 5.3x0.4=2.1.
Now you'd create a new food entry say for example: Sun Rice Brown Medium Grain Rice Cooked and you'd use the same serving size but inputting those lower nutritional values as the values.

To double check you inputted everything correct and it all adds you. Add the uncooked and just below it add the cooked version of the product, then use the same weight as you took the examples. So I set 200g of it uncooked and then in my newly created one I added 500g (like what it originally came out as) and it was basically the exact same entry.

Now I created this for people who prefer to cook bulk and forget about it. I know you can cook say 1 cup of rice and split it up into 3 containers and then split that uncooked weight between three entries. But I never know how much I want until it's on my plate. I find this way is more flexible.

Maths isn't my strong suit so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a flaw in there somewhere, so I'd love for someone(s) to double check it and if it's correct, feel free to use it. I know I will.

Note: The Rice was some pretty clean numbers but if yours isn't don't freak out. I tested it with some imaginary pasta and it imagined it to be 86g of dry pasta and 214g of cooked, very messy numbers and the percentage difference came to a 59.81308411% decrease. But the math still checked out, you just have to minus that whole number. I.E 100-59.81308411= 40.18691589. So it works with all percentages.

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    or just weigh it raw and use a raw entry in the database, or weigh cooked and use a cooked entry in the database...?
  • Nedgyx
    Nedgyx Posts: 16 Member
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    TavistockToad, Idk I found those where inaccurate like when I searched for this specific pasta I had the cooked entry was like outrageously high/inaccurate. Just my personal experience.
  • jdwils14
    jdwils14 Posts: 154 Member
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    If you cook in bulk, you can summate the amount you use (200g), take the mass of the rice cooked (as you say 500g which is just 300g of added water, unless you add butter), and then use proportions.

    200g uncooked = X calories = 500g cooked

    100g cooked on plate = (100/500)X
    =0.2X calories on your plate
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,751 Member
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    Or... Put it in the recipe builder, use the raw weight to get calories, use the cooked weight for number of serves (1g =1 serve). When you serve yourself some rice, the weight is the number of serves.
  • kateums322
    kateums322 Posts: 2 Member
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    I think what you're doing is pretty convoluted, but if it works, it works.

    As other people have said, I base everything off the raw weight. For this rice example - 1 serving = 70 g uncooked. So if you start with 200 uncooked, you have ~2.85 servings. Once it's cooked and settled, the now 500 g you have is still ~2.85 servings. If you like to bulk cook, you just measure how much you want to eat, let's say you put 100 g cooked on your plate. 100g/500g = 0.2 and 0.2*2.85 = 0.57, so you have 0.57 servings of rice, and that's the number I'd input into MFP: 0.57 servings of 70 g uncooked rice.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,988 Member
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    I would think it would be a whole lot easier just to create a "cooked" entry that uses all the same nutritional information as the packaging gives for a raw serving, but just say that the weight of the cooked serving is 2.5 times (500/200) whatever the weight of the raw serving is.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    edited April 2018
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    You've successfully reinvented ratios/proportions. Nice work.

    So does it totally throw off your concept if I tell you that the cooked weight of grains and pasta will not always be the same? Things like degree of doneness can totally change those numbers (which is why it's preferable to weigh raw).

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