Cooked or raw weight for meat?

member1

For example: Pork Steak, Shoulder, Visible fat eaten from the NCCDB

I bought it raw and it weighed 14 oz. After cooking it weighed 8.2 oz. That's a 40% drop and will effect all of the nutrient totals tracked in cronometer. Which weight is representative of the NCCDB numbers. Did they use raw weight then cook it? Or did they weigh after cooking?

Karen_Cronometer

NCCDB uses cooked values for meats (unless otherwise specified). They try to provide the nutrition values for foods the way they are usually prepared.

Cheers,

member1

So to be clear, I weigh the pork steak after cooking?

member1

And another question....... what about ribs? Do I need to weigh them after cooking and then weigh the discarded bones after eating to get an accurate consumption estimate? Or does the nutrient listing assume that part of the weight is bones?

Karen_Cronometer

Use the weight of the edible portion only - a bit trickier with something like ribs! I use the method that you came up with: weigh my cooked portion, eat the meat, then weigh the remainder and enter in the difference.

Nobuhle

So what about bacon? If it's not including all that liquid gold you call fat, I'm assuming I need to add that day back in when I'm making a bacon and eggs skillet this consuming all the day as well? Excellent Weston's BTW.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Nobuhle,

That's one way to do it! Add in Bacon fat to your diary with an estimate of the amount of fat that was left in the pan. I always save that good stuff for adding great flavour to other things!

JRocker

Asking for confirmation on how to count (or not) bones-

Part 1 - Bones:

My understanding right now is that the food database items only count edible parts. So, weighing something bone-in would be inaccurate, right? And cutting the bone out and weighing only the parts you eat would be the right way(?).

Example: Weighing and recording a bone-in chicken thigh out of the package would be the wrong way and the right way (accurate to the database) would be to cook the meat and then only record the mass of what you eat (subtract bones and inedibles).

Part 2 - Extent of cooking/rendering:

I understand that using the database is sometimes guesswork and you mostly just try to match up to a food as best as possible. Do you have suggestions for something like a pot roast that could vary widely in how much fat is rendered off during cooking? Record separate entries for meat and broth and fat? I generally keep all of the broth and rendered fat for such a recipe (ex: treat like a stew) but I don't have any idea if the database entry kept rendered fat or discarded it. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Karen_Cronometer

Hi JRocker,

You got it for Part 1 - you would want to record the weight of the portion that you ate, do not include the weight of the bones.

The cooked values in the database are the best attempt to offer the 'average' nutrition based on the way a food is typically prepared. There are assumptions built into that, of course. Not every cut of meat has the same proportion of fat and protein, not every oven cooks at the same temperature and not every cook prepares it using the same method. So there is room for error, though it's the best method we have available to us to get the best nutrition data on average, over time.

Pick a cut of meat that best describes the type of meat and fat content for what you are using. I add broth or gravy separately, as some of the fat is lost when it is cooked (comparing raw vs. cooked values for a type of meat).

I hope that helps!