fried foods how much added oil?

VegasTortoise

Made a recipe for keto fried or baked eggplant with a batter of eggs, parmesan cheese and ground pork rinds. Yummy! BUT I am at a loss to input the amount of oil that actually goes into the recipe itself.
For baked, no problem because I rub the pan with about a tablespoon of oil and all of it is gone after baking.
For frying, I start out with about 1/4 cup olive oil in the pan but after frying the eggplant, most of the oil is still in the pan. So do I weigh/measure oil before and after? The problem is that some of the weight 'after' belongs to bits of egg and crumbs of cheese/rinds as well as any water shed by the eggplant itself.
Any other suggestions on how much oil to add to fried foods? I need an RD!!!

Craig

Great question I’ve always wondered as well. I don’t have the answer but wanted to add an observation. It seems to me that sometimes the oil required for frying an item in the Cronometer data base is already added??? For instance, does an omelette with 2 eggs have the same data base caloric content as 2 raw eggs? I always just throw the oil used as an extra line item, knowing I am probably overdoing it.

Craig

...to answer my own previous question, I suppose you could always explode a Cronometer listing to see if anything like oil was included , but I’m thinking probably not. Maybe it should be? End of the day, the data base is a useful approximation as is, but olive oil and other frying substances are not cheap when it comes to calories.

Marie_Eve_Cronometer

Hello @VegasTortoise and @Craig !

Great question! Unfortunately, I don't have an exact answer for you. The oil absorption of fried foods depends on many different factors such as the texture of your product, the temperature, and the cooking time.

If you have access to a subscription for peer-reviewed literature and want to nerd-out like I just did, here are a few articles:

MOREIRA, R. , PALAU, J. and SUN, X. (1995), SIMULTANEOUS HEAT and MASS TRANSFER DURING the DEEP FAT FRYING of TORTILLA CHIPS. Journal of Food Process Engineering, 18: 307-320. doi:10.1111/j.1745-4530.1995.tb00369.x

OUCHON, P. B., AGUILERA, J. M. and PYLE, D. L. (2003), Structure Oil‐Absorption Relationships During Deep‐Fat Frying. Journal of Food Science, 68: 2711-2716. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2621.2003.tb05793.x

Chapter 5 Understanding Oil Absorption During Deep‐Fat Frying": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043452609570052

I believe the best way to measure your oil would be to measure what is left after cooking to get an estimate.

@Craig , if you're eating cooked eggs, I would recommend using the entry for 'Eggs, Cooked'. We also have an entry for 'Omelet, Plain' which represents the average omelet consumed in the US.

Cheers,
Marie-Eve

VegasTortoise

“Nerd out” I will 😂 !

thank you so much, I do have academic access and am a heavy user 😎, very helpful