Comparing cooked and uncooked weights

So I read it's preferable to use the cooked entry in the nccdb as it has more accurate nutrition information. But that is leading to some confusion.


As example. One recipe I have it about 600 dry grams of lentils in 600 grams of water. Cooked in an instant pot this produces about 1200 grams of cooked lentils.


However 600 grams of dry lentils is around 2112 calories according to the label, but 1200 g of cooked is about 1392 calories on the nccdb.


That's a huge difference between cooked and uncooked. Can someone explain this discrepancy please?

Answers

  • Based on the numbers, the recipe of the NCCDB boiled lentils takes in twice the amount of water than your instant pot recipe. When I know the raw/dry food weight I tend to use that instead of the cooked version. I assume you won't be eating all 600g of dry lentils at once, so if you wanted to use the NCCDB boiled lentil entry, you will have to do some maths and conversion.

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