Weighing Food - RAW OR COOKED?

When it comes to the debate of cooking raw weight Vs cooking cooked weight; we always choose raw, uncooked weight where possible.

Weighing out cooked food is not necessarily the most accurate way to track your macros due the changing results of evaporated and absorbed fluids.

We would also recommend only using ‘grams’ as your unit of measurement instead of ‘cups and teaspoons’ etc. to improve consistency and accuracy while tracking.

Carbohydrates will usually soak water up during cooking (making it heavier), and proteins will release water (getting smaller/tighter)

The following examples can show you the inconsistency with different units of measurement:

PROTEIN: Chicken Breast: Depending on the cooking method, a 100-gram serving of raw chicken breast can shrink to 70 grams or less, and will no doubt always weigh different after being cooked depending on how long you cook it for – however the raw weight is still the same.

CARBS: Pasta: When cooking pasta, it changes in weight by absorbing water. The longer you cook in for, the more water it will absorb and the heavier it will weigh. However, again the dry weight of the pasta hasn't changes.

CUPS/ GRAMS: Sweet Potato: If you track sweet potato in “cups” it will depend on how small or large you cut your sweet potato as to how much you could fit in your cup. depending how small or large you dice the potatoes, will depend on how much fits in the cup, which means it will change in grams every single time.

So, as a rule of thumb. Weigh your food raw/dry and in grams for the most accurate nutritional breakdown.