Meat raw or cooked

DianaPrince

I weigh meat raw because I find it difficult to gauge cooked weight if it is in a sauce. Been using listed macros for streaky bacon and pork mince (found Pork Burger with onions but actually mine is without any egg or filler just pure pork mince). Listing may be referring to cooked weight. Any suggestions welcome.

heather44

Just joined cronometer and finding it extremely useful, however I have not been able to find out so far wthether the nutritional figures refer to cooked or raw weight. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks.

Hilary

@DianaPrince You have identified one of the toughest parts about tracking nutrition - the best way to record the ingredients in mixed dishes.
The most accurate way to record your ingredients is also the most time-consuming. Cook and then weigh each ingredient separately then mix them together before you eat them. Record the weight of each cooked ingredient in your recipe. There are differences in nutrients in a cooked vs. raw food, so entering in the values as cooked foods will also give you a more accurate nutrient profile.
In the case where you have already prepared your recipe and it is not an option to separate out the ingredients, change the recipe to servings based, rather than weight-based. This will give you an estimate of your nutrient intake, but keep in mind the nutrients found in raw vs. cooked food can be different. The biggest difference can usually be found in the water content, as you have noticed. If you are tracking your water intake very closely, you may consider adding water to your recipe and then entering a negative number to account for the water loss that occurred during cooking.
It is a trade-off between how accurate you would like to be in your food diary and how much time you would like to put in to it.
@heather44 typically it will say in the listing notes, name, or serving size depending on where the data is coming from! Check out this blog post to learn more: https://cronometer.com/blog/6-tips-getting-nutrition-data/

USG

I read the above as well as the blog link, however, it is still unclear to me if the list was based on raw or cooked meat weight when compounded (regardless the macros).
For example, I would like to eat a piece of steak or fish. I weigh it and cook/bake/grill it. By the time I eat this piece it weighs less. So, it is not clear to me if I ate the correct amount/under ate or overate. Is there a way to tell us what the compounded list is based on? (Once again, regardless the caloric and nutritional values, just pure weight!) Thanks in advance

jerbir

More detailed discussion beyond the copy and paste response is here: https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/182/new-recipe-raw-ingredient-weight-versus-cooked-serving-weight#latest

Hilary

Hi @USG , If the listing says "Raw" in the item name, it is the raw weight that you should enter in your diary. If the Listing indicates that it is cooked, you should enter the weight of the food after it has been cooked.
If you are still unsure, let me know the name (or food number) of the listing you are using!

USG

Hello Hilary,

Thank you for the reply. What you indicate is correct and self explanatory! The problem is when it does not state "raw or cooked". Case in point: I cook Patti of raw grass fed beef 45%/55%. The closest thing I could find is "Bartel's farm grass fed organic beef 85/15 ground beef", for example. If I chose the generic one which states "Beef, grass fed, ground , raw" which does not even specify percentage of lean and fat.
So, it is difficult for me to determine how to calculate what and how much actually enters my body when consuming it. Thanks again! I appreciate your help.

Hilary

@USG , If a preparation method is not indicated you can assume the values are for the product as packaged. In general, I would recommend trying to use the generic NCCDB listings which indicate a fat percentage. Have a look at this blog post to learn more about choosing data: https://cronometer.com/blog/6-tips-getting-nutrition-data/

USG

Thanks Hilary :-)