I have two digital scales. One I bought several years ago at a Weight Watcher's meeting. It was about $30, I believe. At the time, that was the average price for a digital scale.
My WW scale still works, but I broke or lost the battery compartment door, so I used the universal fix - duct tape. To change the battery, I have to change the duct tape. So in January (resolution season) when I saw that Aldi (a discount grocery chain) advertised a digital food scale in their flyer for $15, I bought it. I don't remember the brand - and I checked and it's not written on the scale (and I don't have the box anymore).
I haven't thrown out my Weight Watcher's scale, and having two scales can come in handy, so until one actually dies, I will use both. I tested the new scale against the old one, and found that they're both very reliable (I never get one reading on one scale, and a different, even slightly different reading on another).
I actually prefer the newest scale, because while both scales have a function to weigh in kilograms/grams or pounds/ounces, the switch is on the underside of the Weight Watcher's scale, and on the newer scale it's on the front/top. This means that I can easily weigh a food and just press a button to check both ounces and grams without having to turn the scale over and reweighing.
The zero function is great to have (both have it), and comes in handy. For example, at meals, you can put your plate on the scale and zero it out, then add a food, and weight it, then zero out again and add the next food.
I have been using a Salter scale like this one Salter scale and it has been great, very accurate and easy to clean up etc because it is stainless steel. it will show you the weight in oz or g whichever you choose and I think we paid about $30-$40 for it.
I started off with a mechanical one as well and the digital salter is superior in every way IMHO
I have a Taylor 6.6lb capacity digital scale -- I got it for $30 at Target about a month ago. I know you can get them on eBay for less, but I didn't have the patience to wait for it; I wanted it NOW!
All the points everyone had made have been good ones, and everyone also has a different scale. So, my take would be that the brand of scale doesn't matter, or the price for that matter. Just buy whatever digital scale you can find at a reasonable price, but make sure it has the tare capability (enables you to zero out the weight of the plate, for example) and the grams / ounce capability. The price seems to range from $15 - $40.
I bought a Michael Graves Design brand food scale at Target about two years ago and it's still going strong and I love it. It was $30 at the time and has all of the functions that everyone has mentioned above.
newleaf123 , 05-07-2009 03:09 PM
LindseyLouWho , 05-07-2009 10:26 PM
Thank You all for the great information on food scales! I hadn't realized there were so many to choose from. I will be going shopping soon.
