Hi Everyone!
I just bought a food scale because I wanted to make sure I was eating the right amount of vegetables. However, it measures in grams and ounces and I'm just not good at figuring out the conversions. For example, I weighed my jicama today and it was 8 oz - that's not one cup??
How do you all measure your veggies? Is there a webpage that converts, etc?
Thanks!
Have a great and strong day!

I find weighing my vegetables much more convenient than trying to measure in a cup. In one of the early IP Coaching Videos I got, they recommended the Self Nutrition Data website to look up food info. I go there to find out how much a cup of a certain veggie should weigh. Just by eyeballing it, it seems pretty accurate so far, but I've never measured after weighing to be absolutely certain.

In the IP Coaching Video Master Thread there's info on where to find that video online. I'm a newbie so I can't post a link to the video. If you can't find it, the senior members on here are really helpful and could post it for you.

8oz liquid measure is a cup, but a cup of dry/solid food isn't always going to weigh 8oz!

nutritiondata.self.com is a good resource to look up gram weights for 1 cup of individual foods, I use that site often when I want to check nutritional info.

That said, the IP protocol is actually designed for you to measure your veggies by the cup, not by weight - meat is measured by weight. If a scale is easier for you, then by all means use it - but the program is set up with the cup measure in mind.

Meat is measured raw, by weight.

Veggies are measured raw, by volume.

For example, raw spinach needs to be packed into a measuring cup. If you tried to weigh 8 oz of spinach as if it were a liquid you would end up with 20 + cups as it is extremely light.

90% of the time I use a measuring cup, but certain veggies I do weigh in grams because I want to keep them in their original form (example...asparagus, portabella mushrooms, etc.)

Here is the link for the IP video thread
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/idea...er-thread.html

Do you have measuring cups for solids? Otherwise you can eyeball it...the doctor of my clinic said it's not an exact amount each day..if you're a little above or below it won't impact your results...

I use good old measuring cups for my veggies!
Have a scale for my meat!
Just simpler that way!


D

Thanks everyone! I just used the website...here is a link...not sure if it will show up for you, but I converted two cups of raw kale into oz (not fluid oz) and it showed about 10 oz. I guess "raw" is as closed to baked as possible - the other option was boiled and I know that might add water weight.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/...roducts/2461/2
I guess I'm not really sure how tightly to pack it when I am measuring it into a measuring cup, things like kale and spinach - pack it in there tightly or lightly? What say you?
Also I like cauliflower so much that I usually prepare two heads all at once and puree half of it or rice it - then I don't know how much was what - this will help with that!
It looks like raw cauliflower (rice) is the same weight.

I just looked at that site
1 c kale is 67 grams.
2 c would be 134 grams, which equals approximately 4.75 oz

I was thinking 10 oz sounded like a LOT!

measuring does take away the guesswork of how tightly to pack.

Uhhh, raw weight is NOT the same as baked weight! You will end up with 2 or 3 times the allowed amount of product weighing it baked. Kale loses it's moisture when it is baked and becomes lighter so 67 grams of baked kale is actually a lot more product than 67 grams of raw kale.

I would recommend weighing out your 2 cups of raw kale (134 grams), baking it, then reweighing it to find out how much it weighs. Then you can use that resulting weight from then on to measure out your baked kale.

You could do that with all your vegetables! Best of luck to you on getting this all figured out.

Measure everything raw...veggies and meats

Sorry, lisa32989, I wasn't responding to your post if your subsequent post was meant for me.

I was responding to dana135's post indicating that she likes to cook her vegetables in bulk and wanted to figure out a way to know how much a portion weighed. She mentioned that ""raw" is as closed to baked as possible" and I was responding to that statement and also how to go about finding out the cooked weight of her vegetables so she could use that measurement when she bulk cooked. And I DID suggest she first measure the vegetables raw.

If your post wasn't in response to my post, ignore this post please.

Do you have to weigh the meat raw? I have always measured it cooked, such as pork tenderloin, pot roast.... am I eating to much protein then?

Yes, measure your meat raw. If you are measuring your meat cooked, you probably ARE eating more protein than you should be eating.