Meat Shrinkage??

  • I got this ground turkey meat the other day. Here's the label:
    Ground Turkey With Natural Flavoring (Trader Joe's Butcher Shop)
    Serving Size: 4 oz, Calories: 190, Fat: 10g, Carbs: 0g, Protein: 25g
    I ended up making 4 burgers weighing in at a little under 5oz raw. So there must have been 20oz of meat in total. After my husband grilled them I weighed one and it only weighed 3oz..so it cooked down quite a bit. My question is how do I figure the nutritional in for each burger after cooking??? I wanted to have a burger at lunch today that was going to have approx 30g protein.
  • when you do the CC, lots of sights will have a CC for raw or cooked you have to choose the right one for how you want to count it.
  • Yeah, I usually weight things before I cook it and go with the raw nutritional information.
  • But if the burger was grilled wouldn't it lose some of that fat if it shrunk??
  • I always kinda wondered that too. Like if I buy 80/20 ground beef but then i cook it then drain it really good does it still have same calorie/fat value? I usually just count it as if I didn't drain it since I have no way of calculating how much I drained.

    I know I am of no help, but I always wondered the same question too.
  • Okay, at least I'm not alone
  • It probably is a bit less, but I prefer to just use the raw total, and err on the side of caution. Better to log a bit too much than not enough.
  • When fat is being lost, and the meat is easily weighed after cooking, I use the cooked weight/calorie count.

    If it's used as an ingredient, where the fat is going into the dish, or the meat isn't going to be weighable after cooking, I used the raw weight/calorie count.
  • I use the raw counts because I'd rather count a few too many calories than too few.
  • Thanks Ladies!