Weighing pasta

nataliehallworth
nataliehallworth Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm totally confused re the weighing of pasta. I scanned the packet and it said 134 calories for 100g. I've been weighing out 100g dry and cooking it separately but this seems like a lot for so few calories. Should it be 100g once cooked for those calories?? Please help

Replies

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Almost all unsweetened flour-based products are about 100kcals/oz (dry). That includes basic bread and dry pasta. There's more uncertainty in cooked pasta because it can soak up water over a range of proportions.

    I'm an approximate kind of guy, so I jam as much pasta as will fit in a cup measure and use one of the entries that puts that at about 280kcals. It's fast and easy.

  • nataliehallworth
    nataliehallworth Posts: 4 Member
    The scanner and the label are the same it just doesn't say if cooked or dry so I'm still confused
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    nataliehallworth wrote: »
    The scanner and the label are the same it just doesn't say if cooked or dry so I'm still confused

    Let's say this again. Pasta has 100 calories per ounce dry. End of discussion.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,473 Member
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    nataliehallworth wrote: »
    The scanner and the label are the same it just doesn't say if cooked or dry so I'm still confused

    Let's say this again. Pasta has 100 calories per ounce dry. End of discussion.

    An ounce being 28 grams.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    And to complete the loop, 100/28=3.57. 3.57x100=357. So as the first responding poster said, 100 g of dry pasta = about 350 cals (or 357 cals).

    That corresponds reasonably to 100 g cooked being 134 cal, although in the US the label would specify whether it's "cooked" or "as prepared."

    Unless it is some special low-cal "pasta" (do you have a brand or label?), it wouldn't be 100 cal dry for 134 cal.
  • zheother
    zheother Posts: 28 Member
    I recently had this dilemma, and after some "research" for barilla i take it as 100 grams of uncooked at 360, and 100 grams of cooked is 180 since pasta gains in volume as you cook.

    Me and the wifey cook roughly 300 grams of pasta and then the division goes to roughly 2/3 to me and 1/3 to her plate. So to avoid weighing the cooked stuff I just enter the dry weight and call it a day.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Cooked pasta also varies based on the type of pasta,. So weighing dry is the only way. If it must be divided after cooking one would weigh dry to get the calorie count of the whole thing and then weigh each cooked portion to see what % of the calories end up on your plate.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    Sounds like her label doesn't give a dry weight. If it's just standard pasta I'd use the USDA entry for dry pasta, personally. But if it's something atypical the label is probably the best option. I would expect a label to reflect al dente/the type of pasta it is, so cooking longer would just mean you really had slightly fewer cals than you thought.
  • MaggieGirl135
    MaggieGirl135 Posts: 1,030 Member
    @goal06082021 ”You say you're using the barcode scanner - be aware that doing so is not downloading any data from the package in your hand, or anything like that. The scanner is basically just searching the database faster, since you don't have to manually type in the name of the food you're searching for.”

    I did not know that! Thank you.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Hah! I love that people are disagreeing with my approach of measuring pasta in a cup. My dudes: it works for me!
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    Hah! I love that people are disagreeing with my approach of measuring pasta in a cup. My dudes: it works for me!

    Works for me too - I don't even usually measure it any more. I just eyeball; I know about how much pasta to eat. Same with rice.

    NB: I didn't always know. Its taken 10 years of losing and maintaining to get here.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,944 Member
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    Hah! I love that people are disagreeing with my approach of measuring pasta in a cup. My dudes: it works for me!

    Yes, for you. Not for everyone. I don't know what kind of pasta you eat, but a lot of pasta is irregularly shaped, and orientation can change things a lot. and why would you eat exactly the measure of a cup of pasta? I said above I usually have 70-90gr of pasta, depending on how much calories I have left after the other ingredients. Btw, I didn't downvote you.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    @yirara : and I have no problem with people who choose to weigh portions!
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 921 Member
    I weight my pasta dry and the nutrition info on the box is for dry....if 2oz is 200 calories, then 100 grams is ~3.5oz --- which is ~350 cals. So your measurement must be for cooked pasta....so then weight the pasta after it's cooked.

  • alexmose2
    alexmose2 Posts: 208 Member
    here's something funny, i accidently got my angel hair pasta wet and had to cook it all. i just half the cooked amount to dry and call it a day
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    This might be too much trouble depending on how you usually eat pasta, but since I typically am incorporating it into a recipe and not cooking and serving separately, I weigh dry and enter that into the recipe builder, then weigh the entire dish after it's cooked to get my number of servings.

    If you really wanted to be precise, you could even build a recipe just for the pasta, where you enter the dry weight, weigh it once it's cooked, and set that as your number of servings.

    For me it just isn't practical to cook portions for myself separately from the rest of my family. I think the ideas above are fine too, but just wanted to give you another option so you can pick what works best for you. :)
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Calorie count info is relevant from dry pasta weight. Portion size from cooked. If I made 600 calories of pasta I just have to weigh the cooked and my portion of the cooked to get my calories.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    edited May 2021
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    Almost all unsweetened flour-based products are about 100kcals/oz (dry). That includes basic bread and dry pasta. There's more uncertainty in cooked pasta because it can soak up water over a range of proportions.

    I'm an approximate kind of guy, so I jam as much pasta as will fit in a cup measure and use one of the entries that puts that at about 280kcals. It's fast and easy.

    I live in Italy and make pasta almost everyday. The vision of "jamming" it in a cup, just makes me want to cry.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Set the strainer down on a plate on the scale. Weight will register. Take out your portion. weight will go down. That proportion of the total times the dry weight is how much you had.

Categories