weighing food

I would check it after, but the difference is likely to be negligible. Generally speaking, I weigh things after.

if it absorbs water (pasta,rice) before cooking.

Most values are before cooking unless noted in the database. With that said, I normally cook large batches of meat for the week and then I weigh after. So I guess I do it wrong but I am not about to cut everything into "portion" size and then cook it. I'm far too lazy for that.

ALWAYS before cooking. Having worked in the food industry, all weights provided for foods are in a pre-cooked weight.

Meats and veggies will lose weight when cooked due to the loss of liquids during the cooking process.
Grains and pastas will gain weight when cooked due to the absorbtion of liquid during the cooking process.

Yes, there will be entries in the database for "cooked" versions of items, but don't use those if you want accurate tracking. Meat will lose more or less weight depending on how long it's cooked. Rarer meat has been cooked less and is retaining more of it's natural juices, so it will weigh more than a piece of meat cooked to well done.

Grains and pasta are the opposite, cook for less time and they have less time to absorb liquid and will weigh less. Cook longer and they will be heavier with more liquid absorbed.

If you are worried about portioning, it's fine to weigh specifically for portioning after cooking, but always record the pre-cooked weight in your food log.

i.e. I start with 10oz of chicken and 86g of rice. I cook the chicken and weigh it, now it weighs 8.5oz, so I serve 4.25oz to each plate. I cook the rice and now it weighs 324g, so I serve 162g of rice to each plate. In my food diary, I record 5oz of chicken and 43g of rice.

*edited for spelling

Glad i read this thread, I've learned something new!

I just bought a kitchen scale and I LOVE it!! Question, when do you weigh your food, before or after you cook? For example, today I had a sweet potato with my lunch. Should I have weighed it before or after I baked it? TIA

I weigh mine before.

I would check it after, but the difference is likely to be negligible. Generally speaking, I weigh things after.

That's pretty much the approach that I take but, when I was losing weight, my calorie deficit was so large that it really didn't matter (at 294.5 and 6' 1", I went on a diet of 800 to 1k cals/day).

Now that I've got to eat more and watch my macros (I run), I'm taking more of a look at this and, just for S&G, I weighed my steak last night. The steak was CostCo top sirloin (prime) and was cooked rare/very rare. I was shocked at how much was lost. It was 26.1 oz before cooking and 18.1 after!

I would think that beef, since it's fatty, would be an outlier but this is another example of "recording error" that can cause folks here on MFP to "plateau".

As others have said. Weigh rice, pasta, porridge, cereal dry. The volume or weight of water or milk is a source of variation/error if you use the combined/cooked weight.

Put your effort where it's most important. Certainly focus on weighing high carb (e.g pasta, rice) and high fat items (e.g. butter) rather than using volume. Some people find weighing in grams more convenient - if you can use both grams and ounces then you have a lot more choice in the database.

It's almost impossible for a manufacturer or an ordinary person to make an error with weight. It's common for manufacturers and ordinary people to make mistakes or miscommunication with volume.