Raw weight or cooked weight?

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cshenriks
cshenriks Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
When you register meat, chicken, fish etc. Do you use the weight as raw or cooked?

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  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    weigh raw, log raw. weigh cooked, log cooked.

    ideally use raw where possible.
  • gcibsthom
    gcibsthom Posts: 30,138 Member
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    I weigh and log cooked, since I don't eat raw meat. I weigh it the way I eat it....
  • texasredreb
    texasredreb Posts: 541 Member
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    I usually weigh cooked
  • puffbrat
    puffbrat Posts: 2,806 Member
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    I create a recipe, weigh raw along with olive oil/butter/whatever, weigh total cooked in grams, make #grams the #servings, log weight of my serving.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    gcibsthom wrote: »
    I weigh and log cooked, since I don't eat raw meat. I weigh it the way I eat it....

    But most database entries are for the raw meat, and the weight is different before and after cooking... if your weigh 200 grams of meat before cooking and after it is cooked it weighs 160 grams, you still ate all of the cals from 200 grams raw, not 80% of it. plus people add things, oil, etc and cook more or less or cooked entries may differ based on doneness.

    Essentially weigh raw where and when you can, if you can't, make sure you log cooked and add oil or what ever you used separately.
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    It is best to weigh it raw is you can. Cooking removes moisture from meats, and depending on your cooking time, how much you remove varies, so it's not always an accurate representation because 4 oz of raw meat could be 3.25, or 3, or 2.75 cooked, etc based on how long you cook it for, but they would have the same calorie content. So weighing raw is the best way to track accurately.

    That being said, if you aren't able to weigh raw, weighing cooked is certainly better than not weighing.
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
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    Weigh raw & use a raw database entry then ALSO add any cooking oil, butter, spray, sauces etc that you use in the cooking process. This is the most accurate way to log as cooked weights will vary depending on how much moisture is lost during the cooking process.
  • TTF1985
    TTF1985 Posts: 5 Member
    edited March 2019
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    Interesting, I don’t weigh at all. I go by a visual portion size. Like 3 oz is the palm of my hand. I do measure most of the time.
  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
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    Weighing and logging cooked introduces quite a significant element of inaccuracy.

    100g of raw beef is always going to equal 100g of raw beef, That same 100g of raw beef might weight anywhere between 90g to 50g depending on how, and how much it was cooked.

    On the flip side 100g of uncooked pasta is always going to be 100g of uncooked pasta but might weight 120 to 170g depending on how much water it absorbed.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    TTF1985 wrote: »
    Interesting, I don’t weigh at all. I go by a visual portion size. Like 3 oz is the palm of my hand. I do measure most of the time.

    Doing that you may be off 10-25+% on your calorie counts. even measuring cups for non liquids has quite a variability from weight.
  • cshenriks
    cshenriks Posts: 2 Member
    edited March 2019
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    Thank you for all your replies! I will go with raw weight then, since I assume the database primarily calculates the nutrients based on raw weight. I actually tried to search the database for minced meat raw and minced meat cooked and found both. The calories vary a lot though, and raw meat can even include less calories than cooked... The database seems to have information that isn't always correct.

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