Confused about chicken
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Cooking meats, including chicken, causes them to lose moisture. If you cook your chicken just until it's done, but still juicy, it may closely match the calorie counts given for cooked chicken. If you put it back in the pan and keep cooking it until it is dry, it will lose water weight, but it will not lose calories. Now, you'll log it and think it has fewer calories than it actually does AND you're stuck eating dry chicken.
Weigh raw for greatest accuracy. If you bought it cooked, weigh it and use a cooked chicken entry - that's more accurate than not weighing at all.5 -
paperpudding wrote: »I must admit I often weigh things cooked.
I don't think it really matters as long as your entry matches- ie make sure your entry is correctly cooked, or raw, if that is what you are weighing.
Same goes for rice, pasta etc as well as meat.
Yes, depending on what makes more sense for the particular meal, I will weight raw or cooked - I just ensure I am using an appropriate admin-created entry that came from the USDA database.1 -
paperpudding wrote: »I must admit I often weigh things cooked.
I don't think it really matters as long as your entry matches- ie make sure your entry is correctly cooked, or raw, if that is what you are weighing.
Same goes for rice, pasta etc as well as meat.
This is true for me too. Cooked works fine and is much easier if you cook meat bone-in or cook something like a whole chicken.1 -
I read 'weigh raw unless you buy already cooked chicken'. So why can't we cook the chicken ourselves and then weigh it? I guess I'm not understanding the difference?
There isn't one. Weighing cooked is fine so long as you use a cooked entry. The only time it wouldn't be is if the chicken had other ingredients added and thus you needed to use the package (which is not something I've ever come across, but I suppose it might be an issue for some).
People say use raw since cooked will weigh more or less depending on how cooked it is, but that should be a minor difference for something like chicken (which is either cooked properly or not) and also it's all an estimate anyway.3 -
@springlering62 Were you able to figure out how to edit your recipe servings? I have the android app and had no problem changing it there. It only changes the entries going forward - it doesn't change the calories logged prior to the change.1
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just_Tomek wrote: »I read 'weigh raw unless you buy already cooked chicken'. So why can't we cook the chicken ourselves and then weigh it? I guess I'm not understanding the difference?
Is this just the chicken breast you are cooking, no added anything? Then I see no difference from using the cooked weight. But please note, the longer you cook it, the more moisture it will lose and therefore you will end up with less weight that you should due to water being gone.
Thats why I prefer to weight everything raw.
Yes, boneless, skinless chicken breast is what I always use. Nothing else added.
I guess in the grand scheme of things, and all that.1 -
Yes, boneless, skinless chicken breast is what I always use. Nothing else added.
I guess in the grand scheme of things, and all that.
The big scheme of things definitely applies. it is not as if skinless chicken breasts are particularly dense in terms of calories for weight.
With boneless skinless you have to differentiate between air chilled non solution infused chicken and the frozen chicken breasts that are often infused with a sodium water and texture protein solution.
The evaporation and weight reduction is substantially different.
In general as long as you log in a consistent manner small differences will be resolved when your review your progress and compare your weight trend to your expectations four to six weeks down the road and decide whether you're going to make any adjustments.1 -
SlayLikeAWarrior wrote: »Please weigh your meats cooked and not raw. The only raw things you should be weighing are veggies (cooked or not) and fruits etc. Calories for chicken breast will be different depending on the size/weight. It will also weigh more with bone in it. So I suggest you use boneless if possible. As far as entering your data, always select or type in homemade grilled, roast or cooked chicken breast. Select one that's closest to your recipe. Don't get stuck on using grams only. Be flexible a little. For example if the chicken weighed 4oz and the selection on the app only displays 1oz. Go ahead and chose 1oz and adjust the serving to 4 servings. I hope this makes sense. Also, depending on the spices you use and amount, you can enter those as well.
Please weigh your meats cooked and not raw??
Why??
I weigh sometimes weigh cooked for convenience, but that's all, absolutely no reason not to weigh raw.
Just make sure entry is correct - obviously use boneless entry if you are not eating the bone, skinless if you are not eating the skin etc.
Of course also enter any oil you are using for cooking.
Wouldn't bother entering spices myself -the calorie count of them is so minimal.
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I read 'weigh raw unless you buy already cooked chicken'. So why can't we cook the chicken ourselves and then weigh it? I guess I'm not understanding the difference?
Raw is more accurate, thats all.
But if you buy a pre cooked chicken, obviously you can only weigh cooked - then do so and use a cooked entry.
If you prefer weighing cooked at home, just accept it is not quite as accurate and also of course, use a cooked entry.
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Just choose whichever has the highest calories and be done with it. You'll drive yourself crazy with all this.0
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Why would I want to, un-necessarily, assign myself more calories? Would that not mean that I would under-eat at a level that I didn't want to? How would that work for me when trying to maintain my weight?
As mentioned, even if logging isn't accurate, it can be corrected if it is consistent. However, i do find it easier to be consistent by consistently trying to be accurate.
But then again i view the whole weighing and measuring exercise as a bit of a game and a grand experiment. Which means I view it more as entertainment as opposed to stress inducing imposition!1 -
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I can't measure raw I cook all my chucken at once and then freeze it once its cooked for the week.
if you eat it all throughout the week, it doesn't matter if you had 20 grams more one day and 20 grams fewer the next day. just add it all up and divide it equally for the number of days you eat it.1 -
I read 'weigh raw unless you buy already cooked chicken'. So why can't we cook the chicken ourselves and then weigh it? I guess I'm not understanding the difference?
because you have no choice if you buy cooked chicken. but weighing it raw and using the raw data is going to be more accurate.2 -
extra_medium wrote: »I read 'weigh raw unless you buy already cooked chicken'. So why can't we cook the chicken ourselves and then weigh it? I guess I'm not understanding the difference?
because you have no choice if you buy cooked chicken. but weighing it raw and using the raw data is going to be more accurate.
Not if it's bone-in.
And for chicken there should not be much variation in the cooked weight. Overcooked chicken is terrible and undercooked chicken is worse (and seems like a health hazard).0 -
I weigh meat cooked or go by the label if listed (which is raw) This is just how I have always done it, and have never had a problem with my calories not being close. But that's just me.1
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yes me too night hawk.
I guess, as always, it is the balance between convenience and accuracy - and where is the 'accurate enough' point.1 -
The entry for 'cooked chicken' may have been cooked in oil, sprayed with oil, basted with butter or left untouched. If you just select a 'cooked chicken breast' you don't know that the cooking method (and therefore the number of calories) matches your cooking method. I always weigh raw and add any oils, butter, spices etc.1
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Sometimes I’ll create a recipe, I’ll weigh the chicken raw and log the weight and add any additives that I’ll be using such as oil or onions, spices etc and then I’ll choose the number of serves I want from it. Then once cooked I’ll weigh it again and divide the weight into portions because the weight changes from raw to cooked. That’s if I’m cooking for more than one person or meal.
If I’m cooking for one then I’ll just log the chickens raw weight using the green tick and log any other bits and bobs I’m having with it. I find choosing raw best because cooked chicken can be cooked in so many different ways and that’s why they all have different calories but you don’t actually know how it’s been cooked exactly.1 -
Strudders67 wrote: »The entry for 'cooked chicken' may have been cooked in oil, sprayed with oil, basted with butter or left untouched. If you just select a 'cooked chicken breast' you don't know that the cooking method (and therefore the number of calories) matches your cooking method. I always weigh raw and add any oils, butter, spices etc.
Raw and cooked entries can be wrong. If you learn to recognize the cooked entries from the USDA (which have cooking method such as "roasted"), then those are just as good as the USDA raw entries.
Personally, I had no issues using cooked entries when I was logging consistently. What always seemed to me the most difficult part of logging meat other than chicken/turkey was identifying the correct cut (they don't always match up) and dealing with the various options for fat amount (trimmed and inch amounts). I couldn't use labels since I get my meat from a farm. But even with estimating or guessing for that it didn't interfere with my weight loss.2
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