Food scale users input please

pink_mint · January 2022

So after losing about 45 lbs, wanting to lose about 15 more, I finally decided to buy the much recommended by MFP users, food scale. How do you make regular use of your food scale? And has it really made a difference?

Chef_Barbell · January 2022

Relatively inexpensive piece of equipment that pays in spades. Knowing exactly how much you are eating really helps when you have a smaller margin of error (like the last 15 pounds to lose).

Lietchi · January 2022

The alternative of using a food scale is what: cups and spoons? Maybe a cultural thing, but I've never understood these volume measurements, where I live using food weights is standard. Volue measurements are inaccurate, especially for solid foods. Flour: hard packed or not? Pasta or vegetables: more or less will fit depending on the shape and size of the pieces. etc.
At a weight loss rate of 0.5lbs per week (which was my goal) my daily calorie deficit was 250 calories. That's very easy to wipe out by not measuring food intake accurately.
I use my scale numerous times per day. For individual food items and for measuring the ingredients of my recipes.
The tare function is a god-send: put bowl on scale, tare, add first ingredient, note its weight, tare, add second ingredient, note its weight, tare, add third ingredient,... Also handy for sticky foods: place the container on the scale and tare. Scoop out what you need (for example peanut butter) and note the negative weight for your diary. Spread it on your sandwich or whatever and lick the remnants from the knife or spoon without guilt, since it's all included in what you logged.
For cooked dishes, I always weigh the finished dish (and subtract the weight of the pot/pan/...) and then weigh my own portion, to know what fraction of my recipe to log. If you want to do that, be sure to buy a scale that can handle heavier weights (pots are heavy).

pink_mint · January 2022

Very good... yes, I do have a digital scale with the tare feature (OXO brand) with a 5 pound capacity. Hopefully I won't be eating that much at once 😅 I just have to get into the habit. Haven't started yet. But yes, absolutely, I am excited for recipes to be more accurate too. Just need to start using it. I'm curious. I'll do something like weigh my coffee before and after cream.

glassyo · January 2022

pink_mint wrote: »

Very good... yes, I do have a digital scale with the tare feature (OXO brand) with a 5 pound capacity. Hopefully I won't be eating that much at once 😅 I just have to get into the habit. Haven't started yet. But yes, absolutely, I am excited for recipes to be more accurate too. Just need to start using it. I'm curious. I'll do something like weigh my coffee before and after cream.

If you eat cereal or nut butters, I'd start with those.

Rip the band-aid off. 😀

steveko89 · January 2022

I literally weigh portions as much as possible and have for 4.5 years. Wish I'd started sooner, It's default for me now, and will continue indefinitely. I even bought a pocket-sized one that I keep with me most of the time, primarily used to weigh the apple and banana I bring to work for lunch.

nanastaci2020 · January 2022

My kitchen must-have items include a food scale (high capacity, I think mine maxes at 33 pounds) that has grams as an option, tare function. AND a small dry erase board. When I'm cooking, I jot down notes about food items and weights. To make logging easy. (I tend to prelog then go back and edit to actual #s.) Same for creating recipes in Myfitnesspal.

goal06082021 · January 2022

I weigh ingredients while I cook (empty bowl on scale, tare, add diced onion or whatever) and write them down as I go, so I can input the recipe later rather than touching food-phone-food-phone, etc.

I'll put an empty glass/mug/etc on the scale and pour in my juice, coffee creamer, alcohol, whatever I'm drinking.

Bowl of cereal? Empty bowl on the scale, tare, add cereal and note the amount, tare, add milk and note the amount.

Piece of cheese? Cut off however much I want from the block, then weigh that sucker.

Cooking oil or butter for my toast? Put open container/butter dish on the scale, tare, use however much, then see what the reading is. My scale goes negative, so if I tare it out to 0 with a bottle of oil on it, pour a little out, and see the screen now says -10g, I know I put 10g of oil into the pan. Super useful and also no need to dirty a measuring spoon.

Any recipe that involves combining a bunch of stuff in a bowl, put the bowl on the scale and just tare between each addition. Meatloaf, oatmeal, salads. Baking especially, but in baking you really should always work in units of mass, not volume. 100g is 100g is 100g, but "a cup" can vary a lot.

I also use my food scale to work out portion sizes. I took the time to weigh all my pots and pans and baking dishes and such empty, so I know their tare weight. Now, once I've finished cooking something, I can weigh the whole pot full of food, subtract the known weight of the pot, and get the total mass of the finished dish. I can divide that by however many servings I want it to be and thus figure out how big "a serving" is. Really handy for meal-prepping - I made a pot of mashed potatoes and I need to divide it into 8 equal servings, how much goes in each container? That kind of thing.

nanastaci2020 · January 2022

pink_mint wrote: »

Very good... yes, I do have a digital scale with the tare feature (OXO brand) with a 5 pound capacity. Hopefully I won't be eating that much at once 😅 I just have to get into the habit. Haven't started yet. But yes, absolutely, I am excited for recipes to be more accurate too. Just need to start using it. I'm curious. I'll do something like weigh my coffee before and after cream.

For recipes I highly recommend getting a high weight capacity scale. Mine: I can put my heaviest pan/pot full of food on the scale. I make note of the pan/pot weight in advance so then subtract that. Example: I made sloppy joes last week with 3 pounds 96% lean ground beef, 3 bell peppers, 2 white onions, 2 cups (544g) ketchup, vinegar/dry mustard/salt. After cooking the entire lot weighed 4025g in the pan. Subtracted weight of the pan (1500g) and had 2525g of sloppy joes. I created the recipe so that it was 2525 servings of 1g each. When I had 300g for dinner or 340g the next day, was super easy and accurate to log.

cwolfman13 · January 2022

pink_mint wrote: »

So after losing about 45 lbs, wanting to lose about 15 more, I finally decided to buy the much recommended by MFP users, food scale. How do you make regular use of your food scale? And has it really made a difference?

I use it to know how much I'm actually eating...like I think I might be eating 6 ounces of steak...but if I don't weigh it, am I eating 4 or 8? Who really knows? A food scale just adds precision, if and where more precision is beneficial or needed. I really only use it for calorie dense items and meat and for baking where precision is required.

TX375 · January 2022

pink_mint wrote: »

So after losing about 45 lbs, wanting to lose about 15 more, I finally decided to buy the much recommended by MFP users, food scale. How do you make regular use of your food scale? And has it really made a difference?

I use one fairly often. I did not yesterday, and when I had the same food today and weighed it, I realized I was off on my estimate by 50% (guessed 2 oz., it was 3 oz.). It was only a difference of 35 calories, but if that were my normal error or even close to it, the compound effect of those miscalculations would be dramatic. The scale makes a tremendous difference in terms of accurately assessing portion size.

ahoy_m8 · January 2022

This will help you more than you can imagine-- less to clean, fewer steps, better baking.

I weight everything that goes on my plate. I also weigh all the ingredients as I cook. I have some cookware (cast iron) too heavy to tare, but I can weigh the whole thing from 0. So I weigh the cooking pot empty and again with the finished dish and subtract. This is really helpful when I'm cooking for a crowd. Before I got the scale and started weighing food as I served it, I was always overserving the first few plates and shortchanging the last people to get served (including myself). Then I would be looking longingly at the uneaten food on one of my kids' plates because I overserved them and underserved myself.

So by weighing as I serve, I'm better at giving everyone an appropriate amount.

When you build a recipe in MFP, for the "number of servings" you can enter the number of grams in the whole pot. Then as you eat leftovers, weigh what goes on your plate and enter the weight as your "number of servings." This is the simplest way to account for a larger helping here and a smaller one there.

I'm not kidding about baking. I won't even deal with a recipe if it does not specify ingredients in grams. My baking is so much better!

DH bought a second kitchen scale for xmas so we're now a 2 scale family. Sometimes he's using the scale to serve up polenta on one side of the kitchen and I'm carving chicken and need it on the other side of the kitchen. Or we're both trying to serve ourselves lunch at the same time and one has to wait for the other to finish. Now we're an efficient team.

ETA: grammar

Reetz61 · January 2022

I agree, a scale is key. I’ve been using one for a couple of years and I’m now ready to upgrade. Would love to get your recommendations! TIA.

rosebarnalice · January 2022

Big scale fan of a scale with a tare feature here!

I love to build soups and salads by plunking down a big bowl on the scale, taring out the bowl weight and tossing in the veg- noting and taring as I go for each ingredient.

Added bonus: the spouse is a big baker and switched from using volume measurements like cups and teaspoons to measuring ingredients by weight. He says the results are more consistent. Bonus: he's taken to writing down his own recipes, which means I can log them in the recipe builder accurately!

steveko89 · January 2022

Reetz61 wrote: »

I agree, a scale is key. I’ve been using one for a couple of years and I’m now ready to upgrade. Would love to get your recommendations! TIA.

I have two in the kitchen and the pocket one I mentioned.

- this is my primary kitchen model. Fits all my needs and is <$10. If it craps out I’ll probably get another. 5 stars. Ozeri ZK14-S Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale, Black, 8.25 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004164SRA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_EV227R1BGS3AZGGJNZER

- this is the one my wife picked out when It became necessary during her half-marathon training for us to have two. The display on this one lights up, which is nice if you like sneaking around in the dark but the display being on the same level as the weighing surface makes it easy to obscure with a larger plate. It is more aesthetically pleasing for another $5 and comes in pink and silver. Mik-Nana Food Scale, 22lb/10kg Digital Kitchen Scale Weight Grams and Oz for Baking and Cooking, 1g/0.1oz Precise Graduation, Easy Clean Stainless Steel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GFJZ4NL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_2K47F511X474EYYG70QN?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

- here’s the travel one I picked up in June. It’s 1000g capacity. There’s a very similar looking one for $2 less that’s only 100g capacity so be cautious if you’re looking at others. I wouldn’t want it to be the only one I had but for small things or in a pinch I like having it. Fuzion Digital Pocket Scale 1000g/0.1g, Small Digital Scales Grams and Ounces, Herb Scale, Jewelry Scale, Portable Travel Food Scale( Battery Included ) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L92G6CF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_EZ2VBC8D32G9RGR4181X

nanastaci2020 · January 2022

This is what I use. Max capacity is 33 pounds or 15 kg. It takes batteries but also can charge w/ usb. Which is nice, because looking for batteries when you're in the middle of making food is not fun. (And the scale function DOES work when it is charging.)

Easy tare/set to 0 feature. Can toggle between pounds, ounces, kg, g. $16-25 at Amazon, often has a 5-10% off coupon available. Goes on lightning deal occasionally.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XZKBSDJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Reetz61 · January 2022

Thanks for the info. Really appreciate it!

crb426 · January 2022

I started out just like you, losing a good amount before starting to use the scale. I found that I was off on a lot of stuff (either over or under). I was logging bananas for 100 calories and they should have been closer to 150. The bread I eat every morning as toast is labeled "1 slice, 28 grams", but every slice I have weighed is actually 30-32 grams, unless you get the end piece for 25 grams. I was way off on meats which could easily add up to 100-200 calories.

It helps to give you a better idea of what the correct amounts are, so you won't always have to use it. You can be a better guesser when needed.

I even use it to measure my coffee grounds each morning so I can make the perfect cup of coffee.

pink_mint · January 2022

This is helpful! Thanks. Do you guys weigh portioned packaged food items with the info right on it too?

steveko89 · January 2022

pink_mint wrote: »

This is helpful! Thanks. Do you guys weigh portioned packaged food items with the info right on it too?

Depends on what it is or what sort of phase I'm in. I'm the kind of person that eats the same things for 75% of my intake so if I weight something I eat regularly for a while and see very little variation I'll just stop weighing it entirely but if it's something that's particularly calorie dense and notice wide variations I make sure that gets weighed every time. I've found things like bagels can vary pretty significantly from the stated weight on the bag and that the scoop in my protein powder consistently yields a 28-30g flattened scoop when it's stated to be 25g. Regarding diet phase, if I'm massing or in maintenance I'm not all too worried about a few grams of an item one way or the other, though when cutting I get pretty vigilant about my data collection.

hookandy · January 2022

I’m lucky in that I have a high daily goal, so I eye ball lots of things, but as I get a smaller daily allowance then I will need to tighten up on my measuring. If I am off by 100 calories it does not matter at the moment. It also helps hugely with portion creep. Amazing how you cut a block of cheese, thinking that’s about 30g, that ends up closer to 50g

Food scale users input please

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