Raw vs cooked- which do I measured and track!

I would personally use the raw measurement if I started from a recipe and portioned out the servings before cooking.

whichever you prefer. Just make sure if you weigh raw then log a raw entry and if you weigh cooked then find a cooked entry.

I prefer to use raw where possible, because depending on how much water the cooked food absorbs or releases, it's harder to be sure of the cooked calories. If my rice absorbed 2 cups of water, but I took it off the burner a little later, so it dried out some, and then I chose to reheat the leftover, adding more water and took out a cup to put on the scale, the weight of that cup of rice is going to be different from if I'd taken a cup of freshly-steamed, cooked-to-perfection rice. And the calories can vary too. If the rice is more dried out, more fits into the cup. If the cup has a bit rising over the top, the weight will be different, etc etc. Whereas, if I weigh out 50 grams of raw rice and cook that, I can look up the 50g raw weight and be much more confident about accuracy.

Of course, if it's one communal serving bowl, or I'm eating out, I'll use the cooked entries because it at least gives me something to work with. But raw is preferred.

Meat should always be measured raw. If you specify "grilled 4 oz sirloin", the tracker will assume that you meant 4 oz raw steak cooked on the grill. This is how restaurants do it. If you order a 16 oz sirloin steak, you will sometimes only receive a 12 oz cooked portion. Removing fat and gristle, you may have even less. With certain vegetables, you can specify 1 cup raw broccoli, or 1 cup cooked broccoli. Both are very similar calories and it really won't matter (as much). It is much different with potatoes or avocados. Both are heavy in calories, so you want to be careful with exact descriptions. Always weigh if you are not sure! Pasta and grains are very different as one cup of raw pasta (or raw oatmeal) are condensed calories compared to cooked. 2 ounces of raw (dry) pasta boiled in water (until done) equals approximately one cup of cooked pasta and approximately 200 calories. Hopefully, you will get the hang of this! Good luck.

I personally measure cooked food
Some food contain water and after you cook it its weight drop like chicken breasts

mariluny wrote: »

I do both. If i'm doing a recipe with bone-in chicken, i'll weight it cooked because I'm obviously not eating the bones so I want to weight only the actual meat. If I'm cooking a chicken breast, and I plan on eating the whole breast i'll measure it before I cooking.
The only think I will only measure dry (or at least 99% of the time) is rice and pasta. That being said, it's not very accurate because let's say I cooked 150g of rice for 5 portions, it doesn't mean I'll have 30g in my plate, I'll eyeball 5 five equal portion and hope for the best. It's the closest to accurate I'm comfortable doing.

For rice and pasta I weigh the total amount dry then cook it and weigh again. I'd be cooking for 3 so simply divide the weighed amount by 3 and take that as my serving. No guessing needed then.