The other night I measured 14oz of cubed sweet potatoes, then baked them in the oven. They shrunk to 8 oz. Did I eat 14 oz, or 8oz? What would the calories be? I would assume since I ate it cooked, not raw, it would be to total calories for 8oz of sweet potato. Am I right on this?
I think heat will sometimes change the nutrients including sugar in the foods. I think carrots are a good example - raw is less cal than cooked. But not by much. But I do chose what ever is appropriate for the food item. I log 3 oz raw carrots when I eat them raw...1/2 C. carrots cooked when I eat them cooked.
I always measure things raw as I think it's the most accurate unless it's a prepackaged food and the label specifies "cooked" nutritional info. I know, sometimes you "loose" like in mushrooms but sometimes you gain like in oatmeal.
I always weigh raw as well and count from that amount, you never know how the 'cooked' numbers are figured. Using the raw base allows you to then manually include any oils or additives that you used as well.
Well, I tracked it raw just because that would be higher on the calories and I like to overestimate if I'm not 100% sure on something. Thanks for the advice.
How do you measure raw meat? For instance, tonight we had tacos with turkey meat. I had 3 oz of cooked turkey meat. How on Earth would I have figured that out raw since it all cooks together?
Nixie - Hi neighbor! I look at how much I put in the pan (for example, let's say I cooked 1 lb, or 16 oz of ground turkey). Then once it's cooked, I remove 1/4 of what's in the pan for my portion, which equals about 4 oz raw weight.
Nixie - Hi neighbor! I look at how much I put in the pan (for example, let's say I cooked 1 lb, or 16 oz of ground turkey). Then once it's cooked, I remove 1/4 of what's in the pan for my portion, which equals about 4 oz raw weight.
LOL, well we DEFINITELY are neighbors aren't we?!
I'll start trying to do that. I hate the guesstimating game and feel better seeing an exact weight or measurement.
There's nothing necessarily WRONG with using a cooked weight for a calorie measurement. You just have to make sure the calorie figures you're using are also for that cooked weight.
So ground turkey:
Calories per ounce (raw): about 45
Calories per ounce (cooked): about 60
In my experience, 4 oz raw weight cooks down to about 3 oz cooked. The reason the cooked has more calories per ounce is that when you cook something, you essentially boil out a lot of the water/moisture, which evaporates as steam. Since water is calorie free, once you cook it out, the food becomes more calorie-dense, and therefore has more cals/ounce.
You'll notice though, that whether you're counting it as 4 oz raw (45 cals/ounce x 4 ounces) or 3 oz cooked (60 cals/ounce x 3 ounces), it's still 180 calories. But if you counted your 4 oz raw with the cooked calories, you'd be too high (4 oz x 60 cals/ounce = 240 calories...60 too many for what you're really eating), and if you counted your 3 oz cooked with the raw calories, you'd be too low (3 oz x 45 calories/ounce = 135 calories).
I usually measure my sweet potato cooked (since I bake them in the over with the skin). I put them in little plastic bags, sprinkle some cinnamon on it and freeze them. When I'm ready for an under 100 cal snack, I take a bag out the freezer and pop in the microwave for a minute or so...and VIOLA!
Which do you count, baked or raw calories?
