Raw food vs cooked food servings size?

[kxk261]

I cook most of my food from raw ingredients and I measure everything in raw ingredients before cooking.  Are the serving sized listed in the drop down menus pre or post cooking?  For example, is 1/2 c lentils dry lentils or after being cooked?  How about oats, rice, ground beef, spices, almonds?

1 cup chopped nuts is whole lot more calories than 1 cup raw nuts.  

I find this app for logging food not good for people that cook from raw ingredients.  The more processed the food the better the calorie count in my opinion.  

Thanks for the feed back.

[trainer]

I weigh my food rather than measure. This helps somewhat. As for pre-post cooked, I agree that is a problem but most of the info fitbit uses comes from the package. So, for example, if I want to eat 2oz of frozen petite peas the bag gives me the data based on the peas cooked and ready to eat according to package directions and fitbit just copied that data. Food that is normally eaten uncooked (almonds for example) I actually count out and use the data on fitbit that allows me to enter that I have counted out 10 almonds, or I weigh the 10 almonds and enter the weight. I don't eat meat so I'm not sure how fitbit handles something like that.

[kxk261]

This is good info but what about rice/oats/lentils?  These foods come dried in a package or I buy them in bulk (bulk foods don't have calories listed on the packages).   When I look up lentils for example the servies are listed in oz, cup, etc.  Is this refering to uncooked/packaged volume or volume after being cooked?  I assume this same question still exists for weight  since grains will absorb water when cooked and weigh more.   

1 cup of dry rice is about 4 cups of cooked rice. 

I am using the after cooking volume to count my calories but the recipes I am generating tend to be extremely high in calories based on the calorie count in the grains I am using.   The recipes I am following start with dried grains then they are cooked so I really don't know the end volume.

I am also unsure about ground beef, a restaurants sells 1/4 lb burgers and the 1/4lb is measured  before cooking. 

As it has been stated before, the fitbit food tracker is NOT good for those of us who cook mosts meals from scratch. 

[Ukase]

I think it depends on what you're cooking, and how you're cooking it.

I have a recipe for chili. It starts off with just a little water in the pot, then I weigh out the celery, onions, garlic and green pepper. I use the raw weights, because whether they're cooked or not, whatever the cooking process does to them, the caloric amounts are not going to increase. When I put the ground turkey in, I weigh out how much I use, and go off the calorie information. I'm pretty sure I'm not expected to eat it raw, so I assume the nutritional information is a cooked weight. Perhaps I'm wrong. Since I generally use the whole package in my recipe, it doesn't matter. I tally the total calories and add them to whatever else is going into the pot.

When it's all done, I divide the pot into equal portions to come up with a rough estimate as to calories per serving. Over time, the math all works out.

As for oats, I weigh mine. It's the dry weight they provide the information for - at least, it says "Dry weight" on my package. Specifically, 1/2 cup of oats is 150 calories. This 1/2 cup is approximately 40 grams, or 1.41 ounces.

All that being said, I'm not sure what your packaging looks like, but a lentil is a lentil. The internet will have this calorie information. Just go to google and type in lentil nutrition information.

My favorite site for this type of info is here: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4338/2   They even break down inflammation data for you. (not sure who needs that info, but if you do, it's there. )

Or, if you're more trusting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentil

[Naini303]

How many calories in cooked pasta?   Dry to Cooked ratio

I have to look this one up frequently because I always forget to measure my dry pasta first.  Here is a great link to look at

http://www.thekitchn.com/ounces-to-cups-a-guide-to-estimating-pasta-yield-179180

LONG SHAPES
• Angel Hair: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Fettuccine: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Linguini: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Spaghetti: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked

SHORT SHAPES
• Elbows: 1/2 cup dry = 1 1/8 cup cooked
• Farfalle: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Medium Shells: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/8 cup cooked
• Orzo: 1/4 cup dry = 2/3 cup cooked
• Penne: 2/3 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Rigatoni: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Rotini: 1/2 cup dry = 1 cup cooked
• Ziti: 2/3 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked

If there is a particular shape that isn't listed above, check the Barilla website, which has a detailed yield chart for all their pasta shapes.

[slimpat]

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@Naini303 wrote:

How many calories in cooked pasta?   Dry to Cooked ratio

I have to look this one up frequently because I always forget to measure my dry pasta first.  Here is a great link to look at

http://www.thekitchn.com/ounces-to-cups-a-guide-to-estimating-pasta-yield-179180

LONG SHAPES
• Angel Hair: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Fettuccine: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Linguini: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked
• Spaghetti: 2 1/8" circumference dry = 1 cup cooked

SHORT SHAPES
• Elbows: 1/2 cup dry = 1 1/8 cup cooked
• Farfalle: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Medium Shells: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/8 cup cooked
• Orzo: 1/4 cup dry = 2/3 cup cooked
• Penne: 2/3 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Rigatoni: 3/4 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked
• Rotini: 1/2 cup dry = 1 cup cooked
• Ziti: 2/3 cup dry = 1 1/4 cup cooked

If there is a particular shape that isn't listed above, check the Barilla website, which has a detailed yield chart for all their pasta shapes.

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It also depends how long or how well done you cook pasta my angle hair says 2 oz dry is ??? if you cook it to differend doneness there is more or less cups

for what it is worth  I did read somewhere that you count the dry pasta calories and then divide the cooked into the number of servings if 4oz the when done it is 2 servings if you make it more then it is less that a total serving  I hope you can understand what i am saying