How to weigh foods

amigorick

When entering a whole raw bell pepper in grams, should it be in its entirety or after seeded and stemmed? Whole Apple, core and all?

Hilary

weigh out your foods as they are listed in the database. So, if entering raw pepper into your diary, weight it while it is raw and enter that weight into your diary, not the cooked weight.

Foods are listed as edible portion only so in the apple scenario, weight only the parts of the apple you are eating when entering it into your diary

AndrewBrown

Since this app is built for cooks, I suggest using a cook's measurements: tablespoon, teaspoon, etc.

jefmcg

Cooks measurements are not universal. But the databases do have lots of "cooks measurements" in them.

eg...

SimonH

For cooked entries (e.g. "Sweet Potato, Boiled"), should I put the grams of the raw weight or the cooked weight? Thanks!

comanchesue

Unless you are eating the seeds and the stems just weigh what you are eating and use that weight. What I do is to put a bowl on my digital scale, set it to zero add an item, record, set to zero, add the next item, etc, etc. Works great with salads, stir fry and such.

p0wer_lifter

If the entry specifies ‘boiled’ then the numbers are for the boiled food. If the entry states raw, then the data is for the raw food. If the entry doesn’t state anything about cooked or raw, then welcome to the frustrating world of logging food ;)

SimonH

Cool thanks

Nick__4

measuring mussels and clams— with shell or without? Also measuring pasta- before or after cooking?? Thank you!!

Karen_Cronometer

Measure mussels and clams without the shell.

For pasta, you can do it either way. If you measure the uncooked weight, use a dry or unprepared version of pasta to add to your diary, like 'Pasta, Dry, Enriched.'
If you weigh it cooked, then use a food like 'Spaghetti Noodles, White, Cooked in Unsalted Water.'

Cheers,

Nick__4

thank you so much! For pasta, I used the De Cecco Luguini no 7. I figured measurement is for dry, uncooked. But I’ll changed it per your suggestion.

jefmcg

I'd say if you can, use the figures for uncooked pasta. The amount of water absorbed depends on how much you cook it, so the dry figures will be much more accurate.