Portions. Grams vs Cups

[FatGuyNJ]

I've been weighing every single thing I eat, so when I log them I'm as accurate as possible.  Recently, I've noticed that when I go to log a food, the reported calories seem to be sky high, so I tried a test.

I made some Zatarain's Jambalaya rice mix.  The package says 160 calories per 1 cup prepared (or 65g).  Wait.  There is no way that 65g = 1 cup of cooked rice.  I went and weighed it out.  A cup of the prepared rice was ACTUALLY 170ish grams. 

Now I've got a dilemma.  When I eat about a cup and a half of this rice, is it around 250 calories or is it like a thousand calories?  

Since white rice is like 250 calories per cup, I can't see that this would be less.  Granted, I'm not adding any of the fats (butter or oil) when I'm making the Zatarain's, but it's not going to be LESS calories.  I can't see that the spices and whatever is cooked in adds 750 calories either.

I'm not terribly worried about it, but it is quite frustrating that I can't seem to get a reasonbly precise measurement.  

[SebringDon]

@FatGuyNJ

I'd say stick with the scale. Volume measurements for anything but a pure liquid would leave a lot of room for interpretation, anyway. Is that a cup loosely filled, with lots of voids, or tightly packed? I never, ever use volume measurements -- I scale everything worth being precise about. (IOW, I don't scale tomato slices or green beans, but I do scale bananas, because they're calorie-dense.) 

[DaveJermy]

The weight quoted is for the dried mix, which makes up a cup of cooked rice mix once it has been hydrated.

[HelenaFitbit]

I agree with @SebringDon on this, the best way to get the most accurate caloric values is to weigh in every food item. Specially for dressings, takeout and home cooked recipes, they pack a lot of calories and (sometimes) little flavor, so you end up adding more.