What is the best way to measure individual portions from family meals?

DeButterflyx
DeButterflyx Posts: 41 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi

Any tips how to measure out my individual portion of pasta, rice etc from a family meal?
Would it be accurate to weigh it after its cooked on my plate?

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,874 Member
    edited October 2022
    Step 1: weigh the uncooked food (rice, pasta,...) so you know how many calories it is in total.

    Step 2: weigh the cooked food (I weigh the empty pot beforehand, and then subtract the weight of the pot from the total weight of pot and cooked food)

    Step 3: weigh your own portion.

    With those numbers, you know how many calories you consumed.
    For example (fictitious numbers):
    - you cook 200 grams of pasta, which is 800 calories
    - which turns into 500 grams of cooked pasta
    - your portion is 100 grams of cooked pasta = 0.2 of the total amount of pasta = 160 calories

    This method also works for more complex dishes instead of single foods.

    For rice and pasta, you may be able to find cooked food database entries, which would be appropriate to use when you're weighing the cooked rice of pasta. Personally, I prefer not to, because the amount of water absorbed by pasta and rice can vary depending on cooking times.
  • DeButterflyx
    DeButterflyx Posts: 41 Member
    @leitchi that makes sense thanks I will do it that way :)
  • pamperedlinny
    pamperedlinny Posts: 1,687 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Step 1: weigh the uncooked food (rice, pasta,...) so you know how many calories it is in total.

    Step 2: weigh the cooked food (I weigh the empty pot beforehand, and then subtract the weight of the pot from the total weight of pot and cooked food)

    Step 3: weigh your own portion.

    With those numbers, you know how many calories you consumed.
    For example (fictitious numbers):
    - you cook 200 grams of pasta, which is 800 calories
    - which turns into 500 grams of cooked pasta
    - your portion is 100 grams of cooked pasta = 0.2 of the total amount of pasta = 160 calories

    This method also works for more complex dishes instead of single foods.

    For rice and pasta, you may be able to find cooked food database entries, which would be appropriate to use when you're weighing the cooked rice of pasta. Personally, I prefer not to, because the amount of water absorbed by pasta and rice can vary depending on cooking times.

    This is exactly what I was going to say. I weigh everything before cooking for the calories going into the dish and after so I know the total weight per serving. I keep a notepad in my kitchen just to jot it all down as I go. This also helps with leftovers because I'll just weigh out my portion before I microwave it for lunches or whatever.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,979 Member
    If you're patient enough to take a little leap of faith and this works for how your family eats you could also weigh all the ingredients dry and then do a little guess. Say you have a big pot of pasta. You see kid 1 takes one serving spoon, kid 2 takes 2, dad takes 4 and you take 3. So you had approximately 3/10 of the whole dish. I did this for years with my partner. But it was just two of us. And I made sure I served for both of us thus that the serving spoons were pretty much equally full.
  • LiveOnceBeHappy
    LiveOnceBeHappy Posts: 448 Member
    For rice, I just use cooked rice entry in the database. Ravioli is nice because you can weigh them uncooked and then count them out cooked.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Step 1: weigh the uncooked food (rice, pasta,...) so you know how many calories it is in total.

    Step 2: weigh the cooked food (I weigh the empty pot beforehand, and then subtract the weight of the pot from the total weight of pot and cooked food)

    Step 3: weigh your own portion.

    With those numbers, you know how many calories you consumed.
    For example (fictitious numbers):
    - you cook 200 grams of pasta, which is 800 calories
    - which turns into 500 grams of cooked pasta
    - your portion is 100 grams of cooked pasta = 0.2 of the total amount of pasta = 160 calories

    This method also works for more complex dishes instead of single foods.

    For rice and pasta, you may be able to find cooked food database entries, which would be appropriate to use when you're weighing the cooked rice of pasta. Personally, I prefer not to, because the amount of water absorbed by pasta and rice can vary depending on cooking times.

    For recipes, I use this method. I have a list of the weights of my pots and pans. # of servings = weight of finished recipe in grams.

    For rice, I use "Rice, white, long-grain, regular, cooked, unenriched, with salt"

    For pasta, I use "Spaghetti, cooked, unenriched, with added salt"
  • MichelleMcKeeRN
    MichelleMcKeeRN Posts: 450 Member
    We do a lot of dishes with leftovers.
    I add a recipe and calculate all the pre-cooked ingredients. Say the dish has 2400 calories.
    I weigh the total. Say the weight is 48 oz.
    I mark the recipe as 48 servings.
    So each oz or serving, is 50 calories.
    If I have 7.5 oz of the dish, I enter 7.5 servings.
    If I have 9 oz of the dish, I enter 9 servings.

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