I’m wondering if there’s a site online in which you can tell it what the food is, how much you want to end up with in cooked weight/cook adjusted calories, and have it tell you how much of it raw to get for this result. The math and overall research is driving me a bit crazy. If there isn’t a site like this, could someome point me the right direction?
A specific example for meal prepping and final cooked weight goal:
100g sweet potato 100g boneless, skinless chicken breast 75 calories worth of broccoli
So going to the supermarket knowing this is what I want I’ve learned is not as simple as multiplying my per serving weight x 7 (days). I will always need a a little more or less depending on what the food does during cooking (gain water or lose water)
The calorie losses from cooking are largely inconsequential. Nutrient losses overall are fairly meh, unless you are boiling everything you eat its not really even worth tracking them (really vitamin C is the only thing to maybe be concerned about).
If you really really want to delve in to this USDA have nutrition for various cooked forms of foods. Their DB site seems to be flaking out right now but https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169967/nutrients is “Broccoli, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt” for example. They have cooked measures for pretty much everything “normal”.
I usually just use dry nutrition for everything because ultimately that’s what goes in to my cooking. If I have 1/2 a cup of carrots it just goes in as that (plus anything I add to the pan like oil, prefer to overestimate sodium & cooking oils then underestimate). A thing to keep in mind is that our own nutritional labels will always be less accurate then those from prepared food. The variance in nutrition from ingredients is large and depends on time of year, where you are, how cold your fridge is, if the supermarket had the right humidity during storage etc etc. The nutritional changes during cooking are usually far smaller then the ingredient variance so you wont be getting any closer to reality by trying to do cooked adjustments :)
It’s not really possible to do this with any accuracy, because the exact weight change of any food is going to vary based on the exact cooking method and how long you cook it. It’s not going to the the exact same every time. For example, if you’re roasting something in the oven, the longer you cook it, the more water will be lost, and the less the final product will weight.
This is impossible to do with any sort of consistent accuracy. Your cooked weight will always be different, because it largely depends on how you cook your food.
The things you’ll need to take into account:
Did you air-fry? Bake? Saute? Fry with oil? etc etc etc
And based off of that, you’ll have to figure out all the little minute details, such as:
What pan you used
What burner you used (some heat up to a diff temp)
What temp you used
How much oil did you use
How long did you cook it for
There are just so many variables to take into account each time you cook your food, for what? Just to measure the amount of water lost. Doesn’t seem worth it.
Some easier suggestions: Always track food in raw weights, because it’s what’s on the nutrition label (In the U.S. AFAIK).
If you’re trying to meal prep, you buy your food, find out how many servings you’ll need of that specific food in RAW weight. Cook it and then weigh it again and divide it amongst the servings you need. The number will be different because again, you cooked it and again, the only thing that has changed is the water content.
This method may take like 2-3 weeks to get used to, but by week 3 you should be able to go to the store and just remember off the top of your head how much of what item you need in raw weight. Either that, or write it down so when you go to the store you don’t have a brain fart and forget.