How to count calories for meat with bone

gionormo
gionormo Posts: 3 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm a little confused about how to weigh food with bone: Let's take a chicken leg. I could cook it, then weigh it before eating and weigh the bones (which I did not eat) after, calculate the difference and use that weight to calculate calories. However, meat loses weight after being cooked and the nutritional info on the packaging only applies to the uncooked leg. How do I count the calories correctly?

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,827 Member
    edited May 2021
    Weigh the whole chicken leg raw, weigh the bone afterwards and then subtract the bone weight from the raw weight to arrive at the weight of only the raw meat. Log that in your you diary. That's what I would do.
  • gionormo
    gionormo Posts: 3 Member
    Thank you and that seems like a good solution for when I want to use the raw meat separately, but sometimes I like to put the chicken in the oven, before separating the meat from the bone. Any advice on those situations?
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,143 Member
    Take the cooked meat off the bone after you cook it and weigh it and use the cooked entry for the calories.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,827 Member
    edited May 2021
    gionormo wrote: »
    Thank you and that seems like a good solution for when I want to use the raw meat separately, but sometimes I like to put the chicken in the oven, before separating the meat from the bone. Any advice on those situations?

    My previous answer is still valid 🙂 You weigh the raw chicken with bone beforehand. And you weigh the bone after cooking and eating. And then subtract the bone weight from the raw weight.
  • gionormo
    gionormo Posts: 3 Member
    Oh yes I see you're right, the bone's weight doesn't change much during baking in the oven I suppose. Thank you!
  • teamhugcpt
    teamhugcpt Posts: 24 Member
    The nutritional info on the package is taking the bone weight into account. It's an average, and the actual bone-to-meat ratio will vary, but not by a ton. In your situation, I'd weigh the chicken while it's still raw and log it according to the package info.

    There are also listings for a lot of bone-in meats in the database. You can use the same process.
  • vanmep
    vanmep Posts: 410 Member
    I’m not as exact as some people on here - I subtract about 25% of the weight. Same for apple cores and bananas. Too fiddly for me to bring peels and cores home from work. I tried it a number of times and it seems to be a pretty good approximation
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Weigh what you put on your plate and then weigh what goes back to the kitchen. Bone, fat, gristle, etc. The difference is how much you ate.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    musicfan68 wrote: »
    Take the cooked meat off the bone after you cook it and weigh it and use the cooked entry for the calories.

    This, or weigh it cooked and subtract the bone if you don't want to take it off the bone before eating. Just make sure you use a cooked entry that specifies your way of cooking.
  • meeppeepneep
    meeppeepneep Posts: 56 Member
    @vanmep I just weigh the entire apple and log it, because subtracting percentages sound like hard work, and I've got no time for that.
  • vanmep
    vanmep Posts: 410 Member
    meeppeepneep wrote: »
    @vanmep I just weigh the entire apple and log it, because subtracting percentages sound like hard work, and I've got no time for that.

    Oh haha. I didn’t think it was that much trouble. I’ve seen posts of people who write the weight of a banana on the peel and then bring the peels home from work to weigh them. That person was worried about how much the peels might dehydrate over the afternoon. So I thought I was taking the lazy way out 😆
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    I don't like eating an apple unless I cut it up first, so if home I weigh the apple parts I plan to eat. If not home or I'm too lazy to weigh (like this morning when I had an unweighed pear), I just estimate the size. I've weighed stuff enough to be able to do that well enough. If one is doing the lazy logging and not losing, it's probably worth tightening it up, but for many people it works fine.

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