Cooked bacon raw entries

Lindy520

When you enter a food that shrinks with cooking do you enter the amount before cooking or after? For example, when I cook kale I start with maybe 5-6 cups that cooks down to about 1.5-2 cups.

thanks!

OldHobo

Dunno why I'm even commenting because I'm not an expert and I'm confused by the question.
The post title mentions bacon but the text question is about kale.

When cooking greens I always enter the raw weight, not volume, figuring the water exuded will evaporate during sauteing but that doesn't matter because the minerals, sugars, fats, and carbs mostly don't evaporate. Of course, if I'm going to boil and drain then some stuff goes into the sewer instead of my GI tract. The precise amount of loss is, so far as I know, indeterminable.

Fatty meat like bacon is another kettle of fish(?). The fat (bacon grease) doesn't evaporate and if you weigh the rendered fat left in the pan you can subtract a significant percentage of fat calories from the dish. But if the grease is eaten I just enter the raw weight.

Looking forward to better explanations from experts or just smarter folks.

Lindy520

Thank you OldHobo! I don’t know why it put bacon in the title/heading…?… it may have been a fat finger on my phone thing. I appreciate your detailed answer though. I’ve been doing both raw amount sometimes and other times the final amount after it’s cooked. I also look forward to an answer from an expert just to clarify which is best.

p0wer_lifter

I’m not an expert, and maybe I’m not understanding the question, but raw or cooked depends on the specific item that you’re adding. Some databases specify raw or cooked in the item title.

So, I see an item named “Kale, raw” and an item named “Kale, Cooked from Fresh”. For raw, enter the amount before cooking. For cooked, enter the amount after cooking.