Is chicken good for you? Certain cuts?

I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

Replies

  • Lildarlinz
    Lildarlinz Posts: 276 Member
    Chicken is good :) it has lots of protein :)
    I buy the diced chicken…not sure if your in the UK but we have Aldi and Iceland here :) it’s about £4 ish…

    Battered chicken or coated chicken will be higher in calories :)
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,024 Member
    While I will have chicken breast if I want to cut calories, I ALWAYS go for thighs and drumsticks. Lol, and I never take off the skin. I just make it work into my daily calories.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,247 Member
    Chicken, especially breasts are one of the best sources of protein with low calories as long as you take the skin off after cooking. Keeping it on during cooking keeps the meat juicier.

    Thighs are higher calorie but are less dry. The higher fat can be beneficial to hit your minimum fat requirements if necessary.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    I eat quite a bit of chicken. For the most part chicken is pretty lean. I rarely eat chicken breasts, I always opt for boneless/skinless thighs. Most of the fat in chicken is in the skin but I don't really like the skin unless it's been deep fried and at that point I'm not really thinking about calories and just eating fried chicken. Even when I eat skin on/bone in chicken, I usually remove the skin because I just don't like it.

    Also, if you're using a scale and you're eating bone in, you'd want to weigh it before and then after you eat it and take the difference as you would only log the edible portion.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    Any food is fine as long as it fits in your calorie goal, and is compatible with getting reasonable overall nutrition over the course of a day or so.

    Individual foods aren't good or bad; it's overall ways of eating that are better (more health promoting, more calorie appropriate) or not as good (too many calories, too little nutrition).

    Chicken is high in protein, and some cuts are relatively low in calories for their level of nutrition. Most types of chicken could fit into your day, I'll bet, though deep fried and breaded versions will add many calories but not much extra nutritional benefit.

    If you look up the food you're considering in the MFP database, you can see exactly how it could fit into your day: No need to rely on feelings about the food, or blog sites telling you to eat only superfoods, or whatever.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,247 Member
    Air fryer chicken is the ony way I cook it anymore. Amazig juicy breasts
  • sugarfreesquirrel
    sugarfreesquirrel Posts: 268 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?
  • sugarfreesquirrel
    sugarfreesquirrel Posts: 268 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?

    Yes. I want to eat healthier, but I thought the point of counting calories was that you can fit anything into your diary?
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited September 2023
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?

    Yes. I want to eat healthier, but I thought the point of counting calories was that you can fit anything into your diary?

    You might be able to fit any type of food, but not necessarily the quantities you'd like. For example, I can make room for a half cup of premium ice cream, but not a pint. Also, I can make room for ice cream, chocolate cake, lasagna, and pizza, but not all on the same day.

    You started a thread about chicken calories. I brought up Fantastic - Delites because I believe it makes more sense to consider the value of those calories/quantity of that serving.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    130 grams of "Chicken, broilers or fryers, thigh, meat only, cooked, roasted" is 233 calories. Chicken typically loses 25-30% of its weight when cooked using a dry method.

    All ADMIN-created meat entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database will specify raw or cooked.

    Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.

    To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.

    https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

    Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that's what MFP used to pull in entries.

    Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered.

    For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct. Note: scanning is mostly only available with Premium these days.)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?

    Yes. I want to eat healthier, but I thought the point of counting calories was that you can fit anything into your diary?

    If your only goal is weight loss, yes, eat anything, up to your calorie level. But if you also want to "eat healthier", nutrition matters, too. It takes some consideration to decide how to spend your calories, so that you get reasonable nutrition within those calories, in total.
    The point of my comment, and I think kshama's, is that you seem to be concerned about whether something like 260 calories of chicken is a good choice, when spending more calories on foods that are have much less nutritional value than the chicken. This is confusing to me.

    There's nothing wrong with chicken or those foods, considered alone. Other than being over calories by a bit, your total day doesn't look too bad, really.
  • sugarfreesquirrel
    sugarfreesquirrel Posts: 268 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?

    Yes. I want to eat healthier, but I thought the point of counting calories was that you can fit anything into your diary?

    You might be able to fit any type of food, but not necessarily the quantities you'd like. For example, I can make room for a half cup of premium ice cream, but not a pint. Also, I can make room for ice cream, chocolate cake, lasagna, and pizza, but not all on the same day.

    You started a thread about chicken calories. I brought up Fantastic - Delites because I believe it makes more sense to consider the value of those calories/quantity of that serving.
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I feel like some has lots of fat and calories but like skinless chicken breast is ok? Thoughts?

    Chicken thigh is a good source of protein. I took a look at your diary for today. 260g of raw chicken thigh is a rather large serving, so the calories are proportionately large. But probably a better place to cut calories would be the 125 g of Fantastic - Delites (480 calories) or 81 g of Tip Top - Sesame Long Roll (228 calories.)

    There wasn’t much chicken. I doubled the weight of what I had because I didn’t weigh it until it was already cooked and figured it lost some liquid. Maybe it was a lot, but the pieces shrunk a lot.

    If you weighed it cooked, use a cooked chicken (for that cooking method) entry to log it. That may be imprecise, but logging it as twice as much is even less precise.

    Are you seeing her point about the calorie cost of the Fantastic - Delites or the Sesame Long Roll?

    Yes. I want to eat healthier, but I thought the point of counting calories was that you can fit anything into your diary?

    If your only goal is weight loss, yes, eat anything, up to your calorie level. But if you also want to "eat healthier", nutrition matters, too. It takes some consideration to decide how to spend your calories, so that you get reasonable nutrition within those calories, in total.
    The point of my comment, and I think kshama's, is that you seem to be concerned about whether something like 260 calories of chicken is a good choice, when spending more calories on foods that are have much less nutritional value than the chicken. This is confusing to me.

    There's nothing wrong with chicken or those foods, considered alone. Other than being over calories by a bit, your total day doesn't look too bad, really.

    I was more concerned about fitting the chicken calories in as it was getting towards the end of the day. The Delites were already long gone. I did ask if the chicken was healthy, but I was more concerned with how many calories it would have. Also wasn’t sure where to find accurate nutrition information for it.