I've mentioned a few times the difficulty I face with accurately logging my foods here in Japan. Recently, I've been thinking more and more about getting a food scale. My reasoning is that even if I can't know the exact ingredients of the school lunch I'm provided, I can at least accurately gauge the portions of the educatedly-guessed ingredients.

Is this a reasonable way of thinking about things? Does anyone have information for or against using a food scale?

Thanks in advance!

Food scales are fantastic for home cooking. Thanks to the tare setting, it's ridiculously simple to make just about anything--weigh it all as you go, then divide it up into serving sizes after preparation using the same scale.

They aren't much help when you're outside of the house, though, so I also find it useful to train myself to estimate portions. Visual guides like this one help internalize what a proper portion size is.

I'd definitely scoop up a nice food scale, though. They are sooo useful. Also, it's fun to weigh random stuff; puts me in touch with my inner mad scientist.

Quit kyuushoku! Lots of people are doing it.

Food scales are fairly inexpensive - I saw one the other day at Jusco for about ￥1400. I'm not going to get one because I'm lazy, but they do wonders for a lot of people in terms of improving their ability to guesstimate portion sizes.

I use my food scale regularly. I first started using one just for accuracy in cooking, because many of my cookbooks are from the UK and it's more common to weigh ingredients than to measure in a cup. But I also like to weigh portions for eating, to help me stay on track. I don't worry about small variations, but I've been surprised by how easy it is to add on a lot of extra calories without realizing it.

I love love my food scale!! I use it at every meal to weigh something. Otherwise, I know I would very easily eat over my calories.