How to weigh food?

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neugebauer52
neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
in Recipes
Please explain how to weigh my food: raw or cooked? Bone in or out? Portion estimate when I cook for more than one person? When I use a large bowl of (salad, vegetables, stew etc.) over a couple of days? I am sure that there are guidelines somewhere on MFP, but where? Thank you so much for your help. (600 days on MFP, 44 kg gone so far and more to go. I need to have a good look what I am doing food wise.)

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  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,109 Member
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    Raw or cooked: usually raw, unless the name of the entry (or the food package) specifies cooked.

    And only the edible parts, so without the bone.

    As for portions of larger dishes: I enter the separate ingredients into a meal for the total calories of that dish. I weigh the total weight of the dish after it's cooked (don't forget to subtract the weight of the pot/pan). I weigh the portion on my plate and then use a calculator to determine what part of the total dish I ate and enter that into MFP (for example 0,2456 of the meal I created).
    It's a bit of work, but that way you don't need to know how much other family members are eating of the dish.

  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    Generally, I weigh things before cooking, especially if it's a mixed ingredient recipe. Different cooking methods remove different amounts of water. I feel that raw is going to be more reliable. If I have to weigh it cooked, I look for an entry that includes cooking method where possible.

    For portion size in a multi-person (or multi-serving) meal: Weigh the finished product, and make that your number of servings in your recipe. They weigh the portion you take, and enter that as your number of servings. That way it doesn't really matter if you take 1/4 of the recipe, 1/8, or 1/2.

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