Raw vs Cooked Vegetables - Caloric Difference
Can someone help me understand this?
Cooked and raw vegetables have a caloric difference. A large raw bell pepper weighs 164g and has 60 calories whereas a large cooked bell pepper weights 157g and has 53 calories.
When I'm making a stir fry, which should I choose to add to my recipe. I've been choosing raw because I can measure out, in grams, the weight of my raw ingredients before adding to the stir fry. Afterwards, when it's cooked, I can't measure the individual ingredient.
But, if I'm actually eating the cooked vegetable and not the raw, is this messing up my caloric and nutrient breakdown at the end of the day? This is the case for all the vegetables I throw into my stir fry.
Also, on cronometer, the cooked vegetables all seem to be weigh less than their raw counterpart. I cook my vegetables in water, so I am not sure this is an accurate depiction either, I think my vegetables may weigh more after they've been cooked and/or steamed. Thus, I don't know if using the large raw bell pepper to large cooked bell pepper gram ratio, in this case 164 to 157, to convert my measurement of raw bell pepper into cooked bell pepper, is a precise way of doing things either.
In sum,
- Why the caloric difference? Am I inaccurately reporting by using the raw ingredient when I'm actually consuming cooked?
- If I am doing it inaccurately, how do you propose I start recording more accurately?
- Or, is the difference so small it is negligible and I shouldn't worry? Though, at the end of the day, I'd like to have the most accurate representation of my caloric/nutrient intake.
Comments
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It doesn't matter. The difference is so little it won't impact your defitic. Also did you know that some people do not even count veggies? The fiber they have makes our bodies burn more calories to digest them that the ones they have. Don't worry.
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As @Zenon said, the caloric difference is insignificant for most vegetables, but there are some times where this wont be the case: food with large amounts of mushrooms or carrots for example.
What I do is measure the vegetables while they are raw even if I am going to cook them. For the most part, the cooked versions of ingredients are just scaled up to compensate for change in weight from losing water. You can test this yourself by inputting both the raw and cooked versions of a food, adjusting the weights so that the calories match, and then comparing the nutrients, there are some small differences in nutritional content between cooked and uncooked, but they are not that severe, and from what I understand, it's almost impossible to really get a precise idea of the nutritional difference between cooked and uncooked foods. But we know surely that some nutrients get destroyed by cooking, and other nutrients are made available or more available by cooking, so it's a good idea to incorporate both cooked and uncooked vegetables in your diet.
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If I'm weighing raw ingredients for a recipe, I use the raw entry. If I'm selecting 1 large bell pepper from the serving size list, I choose the cooked version for foods that I am cooking. Occasionally I decide to go more advanced, and scale the weight I measured raw based on the weights of the raw and cooked versions of the same unit size in the database, but I don't find this worth the effort most of the time.
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I think my vegetables may weigh more after they've been cooked and/or steamed. but it really doesn't matter for me...... Many thanks for that complete information!