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Pretty much what the title said...
ive heard some people weighting it after cooking, others before so i really dont know...
So, lets say i have some frozen hamburgers... it has a 120 calories per 100 grams... is this the nutritional value before or after cooking?
Since cooking it will make it lose water the weight will drop, so whats the verdict ?
When you buy frozen/raw foods the nutrition information will usually be for it as-sold (frozen/raw) unless it specifically says otherwise.
thanks :)
I feel comfortable saying when you are weighing protein sources such as: fish, chicken, turkey, etc., you should weigh it BEFORE you cook it.
I don't want to speculate with other foods such as rice because as we know there is a HUGE difference in weighing out 1 cup of uncooked rice vs 1 cup of cooked rice. LOL
i always weigh it before (for meats obviously). if all you're losing is water, than weighing it after will distort your macros/calorie intake.
[QUOTE=Darthn3ss;552088773]i always weigh it before (for meats obviously). if all you're losing is water, than weighing it after will distort your macros/calorie intake.[/QUOTE]
I agree.
[QUOTE=Darthn3ss;552088773]i always weigh it before (for meats obviously). if all you're losing is water, than weighing it after will distort your macros/calorie intake.[/QUOTE]
It's only distorted if there is a mismatch between the raw/cooked state of the food and the raw/cooked state of the macros. Most times, macros listed on the nutrition website are for [I]raw[/I] foods, so you should weigh them raw. However, if you know the macros of the [I]cooked[/I] food instead of the raw food, then you can weigh it cooked instead. There is only a problem if you weigh the food cooked and then apply raw macros to calculate the total nutrition (or vice versa).
For example, chicken breast has the following macros per ounce [I]raw[/I]:
Cals - 31
Fat - 0.4g
Carb - 0
Prot - 6.85g
The last time I cooked chicken, I weighed 49.3 oz raw. The total macros for this was:
Cals - 1528.3
Fat - 19.72 g
Carbs - 0
Prot - 337.71
After I cooked the chicken, it weighed 33.3 oz cooked. Since this has the same total macros (assuming that only water was lost), the macros per oz [I]cooked[/I] were:
Cals - 45.9
Fat - 0.6 g
Carbs - 0
Prot - 10.15 g
Now I have macros for the cooked chicken, which I refrigerated. When I take out a breast (which is typically 5-6 oz cooked), I weigh it [I]cooked[/I] and multiply the oz cooked by the macros for the [I]cooked[/I] chicken. If I weighed it cooked and multiplied the weight times the macros for [I]raw[/I] chicken, there is a mismatch and I would have underestimated the cals, prot, etc in my meal. In the same way, at the beginning of the process, I weighed the chicken [I]raw[/I] and multiplied the weight times the macros for the [I]raw[/I] food. You have to make sure there is consistency between the food and the macro ratios you are using. Raw food -> raw macros. Cooked food -> cooked macros.
The reason I start with the raw macros and re-calculate the cooked macros each time I cook a batch of chicken is that the water weight that the chicken loses in cooking varies, so the cooked macros will vary a little from batch to batch, and consequently, the raw macros on the nutrition websites are more accurate than any cooked macros you might find on the nutrition sites. I have a spreadsheet that does this, so it only takes a minute. Weigh the total raw chicken and the total cooked chicken and plug those two numbers into the spreadsheet, and it gives me the cooked macros for that batch.
Sorry for the wordiness. Cliffs:
- Weigh total chicken raw
- Multiply by raw macros for total macros in chicken
- Cook chicken
- Weight total chicken cooked
- Divide total macros in chicken by weight cooked for cooked macros
i always weight it before i cook it