Buzz
Monitoring the calories and macronutrients in your meals can assist you in achieving your dietary objectives, whether it's shedding pounds, gaining weight, or improving your protein and vitamin intake. To measure this data precisely, a food scale is essential. But what comes next?
Using a Scale to Accurately Measure Food Portions
When recording a food portion in your app, estimating the exact amount you're consuming can be challenging. For instance, if a serving of peanut butter is two tablespoons at 190 calories, are you really consuming that much? A thin layer on one slice of toast might mean you're eating half, while a thick spread on two slices could double your intake without you realizing it.
To measure accurately, place your toast on a plate, set it on the scale, and tare it (resetting the display to zero). After spreading peanut butter on the toast, place it back on the scale to determine the weight. Instead of logging a two-tablespoon serving, input the weight in grams—for example, 20 grams of peanut butter. (This is slightly less than the standard 32-gram serving, meaning you're consuming about 118 calories.) Makes sense, right?
You don’t need to weigh every bite precisely. If your toast weighs 18 grams, 21 grams, and 20 grams over three mornings, logging it as 20 grams daily will keep you on track. A kitchen scale helps you estimate portions and divide recipes efficiently. For instance, when I buy frozen chicken strips in bulk, I use the scale to measure out four ounces for a dish. A kitchen scale is also useful for cooking, making it a worthwhile investment even if you’re not tracking macros indefinitely.
Handling Foods That Alter Weight During Cooking
Certain foods, like meats and grains, change weight when cooked. Should you weigh them raw or cooked? There’s both a simple and a detailed explanation for this.
The simple answer is that your food app should include separate entries for raw and cooked foods. Choose the option that’s most convenient for you.
The more detailed explanation is that weighing food in its raw state and using the raw weight entry tends to be more precise. For instance, when roasting a chicken thigh, moisture evaporates or drains out during cooking. This is why overcooked meat can become dry, and why you often find liquid pooling in the pan after baking.
The extent of water loss varies based on your cooking method. Overcooking a chicken thigh in the oven results in greater moisture loss. Conversely, cooking it in a sauce or soup means it will weigh more post-cooking, especially if it’s still coated in sauce when placed on the scale.
Conversely, dry ingredients like rice absorb water during cooking. The final weight of a rice serving can vary depending on how it’s prepared.
It’s important to note that the nutritional content of meat or rice remains largely unchanged during cooking (or at least not enough to matter). Only the water content fluctuates. Therefore, I weigh my food before cooking, confident that its calorie, protein, and nutrient levels stay consistent.
Honestly, I don’t always weigh my food. If I purchase a pound of ground beef and plan to make four servings of chili, I simply log each serving as containing four ounces (a quarter-pound) of raw ground beef.
