I am sooooo confused

Options
parisdufresne
parisdufresne Posts: 6 Member
in Getting Started
DO I need to measure dry ingredients if I select cup or cooked food?
Because rice expands from1 cup to 3 cups when being cooked....
so is this app using cooked food cups or dry food? I am very confused...it is also hard to weigh cooked food

Replies

  • aquitteriamnot
    aquitteriamnot Posts: 78 Member
    Options
    @parisdufresne I researched this recently and found that most serving sizes and calorie amounts are for uncooked portions. For example 1/4 cup rice is measured uncooked then it expands after cooking; 4 oz of meat is measured raw then shrinks after cooking, but if you measured the meat after it had been cooked you would be eating well over 4 oz.
    Hope this helps.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,090 Member
    Options
    There are entries in data base for un cooked and cooked of most things, certainly for rice.

    Uncooked is most accurate - but the really important thing is making sure your food and the entry are the same thing ie if you are weighing raw use an entry for raw, if you are weighing cooked, use an entry for cooked.
  • Bluetail6
    Bluetail6 Posts: 2,920 Member
    Options
    This is website that might help. I found it useful when I started really using MFP in September of 2020. I don't necessarily like the name of the site "cheatdaydesign" however, lol.

    https://cheatdaydesign.com/tracking-macros-of-raw-vs-cooked-meat/
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
    Options
    rice is one of the few things that I use a cooked (gram) measurement for.

    cook it, put your plate on the food scale, tare it out, and portion out your serving (however much that is).
  • parisdufresne
    parisdufresne Posts: 6 Member
    Options
    it is confusing....I just bought some filled pasta vegan....and on packets it says for 125 grams there are 370 kCal but after cooked it come out to like 400 grams....so 3x size.....
    this is so strange because I eat every day like 1500 to 2000 kcal and I dont loose weight and I am vegan, so no fried food, mostly rice and veggies and fruit....
  • Fit_Happens_2021
    Fit_Happens_2021 Posts: 303 Member
    Options
    If making rice or pasta just for myself I will just go by the dry amount that I weigh out in grams before cooking, but if I am making rice for the family it becomes a little more tricky as I will have 4x the serving size in the pan, but of course, the weight is different when it has absorbed the water.
    So to make it easier to put my portion out I put the pan of cooked rice on the scales and subtract the weight of the pan from the total weight, then put a quarter of the rice on my plate.
    (I have written the weight of my pots and pans on the side of them with perm marker to make it easy and fast)



  • parisdufresne
    parisdufresne Posts: 6 Member
    Options
    Fit_Happens_2021 wrote: »
    If making rice or pasta just for myself I will just go by the dry amount that I weigh out in grams before cooking, but if I am making rice for the family it becomes a little more tricky as I will have 4x the serving size in the pan, but of course, the weight is different when it has absorbed the water.
    So to make it easier to put my portion out I put the pan of cooked rice on the scales and subtract the weight of the pan from the total weight, then put a quarter of the rice on my plate.
    (I have written the weight of my pots and pans on the side of them with perm marker to make it easy and fast)

    there are cheap scales that after pressing button it deletes the weight of the pot, pan so you dont have to do it manually in your mind....

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,615 Member
    Options
    parisdufresne wrote: »
    Fit_Happens_2021 wrote: »
    If making rice or pasta just for myself I will just go by the dry amount that I weigh out in grams before cooking, but if I am making rice for the family it becomes a little more tricky as I will have 4x the serving size in the pan, but of course, the weight is different when it has absorbed the water.
    So to make it easier to put my portion out I put the pan of cooked rice on the scales and subtract the weight of the pan from the total weight, then put a quarter of the rice on my plate.
    (I have written the weight of my pots and pans on the side of them with perm marker to make it easy and fast)

    there are cheap scales that after pressing button it deletes the weight of the pot, pan so you dont have to do it manually in your mind....

    Yes, but if the pot is already full of soup, it's nice to know the tare weight so you can weigh the whole pot full and then subtract the weight of the pot. Otherwise, what are you going to do with the soup while you tare the now empty pot? If you're going to do that, you could just do it with a big empty bowl. And then have another thing to wash. Totally makes sense if you're going to weigh a pot full of prepared food to figure out how much a serving is to have all your pots already tared.

    I worry about putting hot things on my scale.

    I made a soup tonight with split peas AND lentils. Mostly that's it, plus onion and garlic, hot chile, and celery and some spices. I weighed all the ingredients, and in the recipe I wrote on MFP, I just guessed how many "servings" it is. I have a few recipes I make fairly frequently and vary the ingredients just a little. I just go with the recipe I already have entered; it's close enough.
  • FitAgainBy55
    FitAgainBy55 Posts: 179 Member
    Options
    There is a saying, "perfection is the enemy of good"

    Do what you can within reason to be accurate, but don't freak out over being perfect. My fear is that some people look at calorie counting and say it's too confusing, too much work and impossible to get right so why try ?

    You are never going to measure everything perfectly, so just accept that. I believe the awareness and accountability that comes with tracking your food is actually more important than the precision.

    I'm not encouraging people to just ignore measuring/weighing, I'm simply trying to provide some comfort that it isn't going to completely ruin your success if you aren't perfect.

    The only thing I measure/weigh is separate protein for my lunches (unless of course it's soup, casserole etc..) So I weigh one ingredient out of 3 meals, some of the time. My primary concern in this case is getting enough protein and not a major concern over calories.

    I trained myself to accurately estimate portions visually and occasionally spot check myself and therefore logging and prepping food is very simple. This worked perfectly for me for the 6 out of the last 10 years I actually logged food. Was I often inaccurate ? Sure. Sometimes I was under, sometimes over ... it averages out and it takes a lot of the stress away.

    I used this approach 10 years ago to get to my goal weight and maintained it for 5+ years. I'm back to counting calories and working out again and having the same success as last time. Consistently losing 1.5 lbs per week which matches the calories in/calories out estimates. I would have to consistently underestimate my food intake by 37.5% to negate my weight loss. I've found that as long as I'm really being honest with my estimates that this simply doesn't happen FOR ME.
  • Fit_Happens_2021
    Fit_Happens_2021 Posts: 303 Member
    Options
    parisdufresne wrote: »
    Fit_Happens_2021 wrote: »
    If making rice or pasta just for myself I will just go by the dry amount that I weigh out in grams before cooking, but if I am making rice for the family it becomes a little more tricky as I will have 4x the serving size in the pan, but of course, the weight is different when it has absorbed the water.
    So to make it easier to put my portion out I put the pan of cooked rice on the scales and subtract the weight of the pan from the total weight, then put a quarter of the rice on my plate.
    (I have written the weight of my pots and pans on the side of them with perm marker to make it easy and fast)

    there are cheap scales that after pressing button it deletes the weight of the pot, pan so you dont have to do it manually in your mind....

    Yes I have some that do that, and I use them that way often, but when I am measuring a cooked dish that has been made in the pan I don't want to empty the contents just so I can press the button to zero out the weight of the pan, that would dirty another pan to wash as @mtaratoot pointed out. So knowing the weight of my most commonly used pans makes it fast and easy.

Categories