So, I see a lot of people use this method where they weigh dry ingredients on a scale in grams individually first and then add up all individual ingredient’s grams and put them in calories counting app’s number of serving placeholder. Then they weigh there portion again and put that number for their meal. But how can this be accurate for a recipe like beans where you might add a lot of water to it. I know water has no calories but wouldn’t water’s weight exaggerate the actual calories in a recipe. What’s the solution to this?
It sounds like you’re talking about adding recipes to MFP. This is my usual process:
Weigh ingredients raw/dry and jot down grams on notepad while prepping. Measure calorific liquids in measuring cups/spoons.
After cooking process is complete, weigh entire batch of food. Input all ingredient measurements into Recipe Builder.
Set total batch weight as number of Servings in Recipe Builder. (ex. 2000g = 2000 servings)
When adding food to diary, weigh out individual portion and set that as Serving amount in diary.
It’s an estimate.
Calorie counting will never be 100% accurate, even with whole foods from an official database, because they use averages. For example, 100g of apple is 52 calories. But food nutritional value varies depending on growth location, conditions, ripeness, variety (e.g. Fuji vs Honeycrisp), and probably other factors. In the lab, they will take measurements of a bunch of apples and use the average. The apple you are eating likely isn’t 52 calories exactly.
With dry foods, such as rice, pasta, and beans, the same applies, only water can be an additional factor. Some databases have dry measurements for certain things, but some do not. For example, in Cronometer, there is not a dry measurement for black beans, only “black beans, cooked from dried.” Their weight will vary depending on soak time, so it’s an estimate.
The same issue applies to cooking meat and vegetables, as they lose water and fat (from meat). You want to weigh raw because cooking variations in time and temperature are too large, so you want the closest option. Not to mention any other ingredients you add during the process. If you roast some veggies with olive oil, how will you account for that after cooking?
In addition, for packaged products – canned soup, snacks, etc. – the FDA allows a 20% variance. On the surface, this seems like poor oversight, or giving a hand to manufacturers, but as mentioned, it’s impossible to know the exact calories, even with raw, whole foods.
With calorie counting, you do your best to control the factors you can and get close to the amount, but don’t ever think that you ate exactly 1547 calories that day. This doesn’t mean that counting with apps is useless; it’s still good to gauge how much you’re taking in on a daily basis. You want to be near your calorie goal, so going over (or under if trying to gain) by 500 isn’t helpful.
This applies to macros and micros as well, with the amounts in foods being an estimate.
Weigh beans before, add water and weigh beans with water. Weight before divided by weight after. Now take as much beans with water as you want (weigh it again) times the number that you just got. If you didnt take a lot more water than beans for example, you now know how much actual weight of beans you have.
I probably didn’t explain too well, cause I’m no native speaker, but it’s honestly just simple math and you can most likely figure it out yourself. Obv the math can be way simpler if you’re not going to cook and thus potentially lose water weight