This may be abit of an odd question lol
But does anyone know if roast things (such as potatoes and carrots) have extra calories than the equivalent boiled? (assuming of course you dont add anything to them to roast them such as oil or butter)
Nope - they'll be pretty much the same. The nutrient content of the boiled might be a bit lower, as some vitamins and minerals leach out into the water, but the calorie counts will be the same.
I always count my veggies as "raw" using my calorie counter, then cook however I please (adding extra cals for any add ons, of course).
I read "Roast things" as "things which are roasted in the oven". If there's an actual ROAST involved, that might make a difference...
Although, because I measure things raw, it wouldn't make a difference for me. If there are 600 calories in my roast raw, and 200 calories in my veggies raw, it'll still be 800 calories total, even if some of the meat juice calories leave the roast itself and migrate into the veggies and raise their calories...because no calories are created or removed in a food just by cooking it, you'd still come out the same in the end.
A friend of mine who hosts WW meetings told me once that veggies can carmelize into a sugar during the cooking process and are counted differently on WW because of it. I don't know if it's true but it's what she said.
Sugar can't caramelize unless it's there to start with.
Every food item has some constituent parts...sugars, vitamins, fat molecules, etc. Veggies have some natural sugar, have some fiber, have some carbohydrate.
Now, when you cook that food, you might lose components...for example, if you cooked a roast, and fat and juices dripped off and you didn't consume them, that would be a calorie reduction in the roast, but NOT in the total pan (the calories are still there...they're just in a part you're no longer consuming). You may also change the chemical form of some of the components (for example, a sugar caramelizing), which can alter flavor, but again, isn't going to alter the calories in the components. The original energy is all pretty much still there (physics and chemistry 101...you don't create matter out of nowhere, and it doesn't vanish to nowhere either) in all major cooking techniques. I suppose if you were doing something extreme enough to vaporize your food in cooking it, or if you burned it to cinders, you'd experience some calorie loss in the food, but hopefully you're not doing either of those!
Now, different cooking techniques DO effect the Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load of foods, which is how quickly those foods are digested and converted to blood glucose...cooking method makes a big difference, as certain cooking techniques makes the sugars in foods more easily digested. But it's not going to change the number of sugars that are there, just how quickly they hit your blood.
And don't forget that GI is a measure of an item of food eaten in isolation. When you have a mix of foods at the same time, such as potatoes with steak and salad, the GI of each item is moderated by the presence of the others...
Kira
A friend of mine who hosts WW meetings told me once that veggies can carmelize into a sugar during the cooking process and are counted differently on WW because of it. I don't know if it's true but it's what she said.
I've been a WW member dozens of times, and have learned that the WW leaders have little to no nutritional training, and can have some pretty off-the-wall personal theories that are not at all endorsed by WW.
Carmelizing sugars could theoretically reduce the calorie content slightly (but only if the sugar had gone past carmelizing into actually burnt. If it's black, a few of the calories have been burned away, but the calories lost wouldn't be significant until the food was burnt far beyond edible).
I read it as roasted in the oven also. I count my veggies as raw, then roast/grill them. I would assume that the calorie count would change if I cooked them together with meat, but that doesn't happen in my house.
I've been a WW member dozens of times, and have learned that the WW leaders have little to no nutritional training, and can have some pretty off-the-wall personal theories that are not at all endorsed by WW.
Ok, not to hijack the thread but the idea that it's all the same makes total sense to me but I always wonder about spinach. Most places I see spinach servings defined, the cooked is WAAAAAY more than the amount that would be produced by the raw serving being cooked. I'm not going to have the right amounts but I think leafy greens are 1 cup per serving but the cooked spinach is supposed to be a 1/2 cup. 1 cup of spinach definitely does not cook down to anything close to a 1/2 cup. Anyone have any insight on that? I just count the raw and if I cook it, so be it but I've been wondering.
Well...see with spinach it depends a lot on how LONG you cook it. another reason to measure your veggies raw and ignore the "cooked" entry. I can cook a lb of spinach down to about 2 cups, or I can cook it down to about 4 or...
Also, fitday often ASSUMES added fat when you pick cooked versions of veggies.
Personally spinach is one that I can barely bring myself to record at all. One of those huge costco containers of spinach is like 100 calories.
yes, by roast i meant just cooked in the oven (ie. not with a joint of meat just on their own in a tray) i much prefer roast carrots and potatoes to boiled ones so i was wondering if they were more fattening, i think you also feel more full with roast things than just boiled ones, which may be a mental thing than a physical thing but anyway if they are the same in calories i shall be very glad! lol
Do keep in mind that they'll have a different number of calories by weight or volume, because roasting will make them lose more water. So, like a few people said earlier, measure/weigh them while raw to know for sure.
For example: if you take 10 baby carrots and boil them, then take 10 identical baby carrots and roast them, the roasted ones will be lighter and take up a little less space. So if you're measuring your veggies by weighing them or using measuring cups after cooking, you might be eating more or less than you think you are.
Does anyone know?
so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
