Simple question. When you are weighing say a piece of steak or chicken to determine the protein content (let’s say steak is 20g protein per 100g) is the 100g measurement before or after cooking?
Good question, I beleive that most food composition tables list protien content as pre-cooked, but Im not sure.
Before. Most calorie tables I have seen are based on the pre-cooked weight of the meat.
It is probably best to measure things after cooking because you’ll lose alot of the water content through the cooking process; especially if what you are cooking is frozen. However, that is not always possible w/ some dishes (i.e. some kind of baked casserole, stir fry, etc.) If you are just making a chicken breast, and plan to eat it whole after you cook it, then go ahead and measure it after you cook it. If you are going to be making something a little more complex, just measure it before hand. It most likely won’t make a huge difference, provided the product is thawed first, and not frozen.
Based on a 4oz chicken breast (uncooked): 26grams of protein. Now on a cooked 4oz chicken breast: 35.2grams of protein is available.
The meat loses size during the cooking process due to loss of moisture. So the cooked 4 oz is more dense in protein. Hence the gram count.
GRRRRR!!! I hate measuring food! This always pisses me off because nothing adds up right. i just made chicken today and ran into the same problem. most of the values they give are uncooked values. i emailed the chicken company , Tyson, the other day and asked if the weight they have for the serving size is for frozen or cooked and they told me it was based on “as packaged”, which still didn’t really answer my question because i don’t know if they package them raw and then freeze them or if they are frozen and then put in the bags. like someone else mentioned when meat thaws it weighs a lot less because of the juices. also i was making some pasta today and a serving size was 56g or 1.25 cups. i measured out 56g and it was really only like 1 cup. plus the whole bag that said it contained 6 servings (336g) really had like 360g. usually when stuff is like that they say “about 6 servings” ,but this one just said “6 servings”. then i realized i was getting aggrevated over nothing because even if it was a little off, it would only be a difference of maybe 50 calories or so at the most. so the moral of the story is that you will never be able to get a very accurate measurement of calories/protein in most foods, but it doesn’t matter because it won’t make that big of a difference in the end. if you think about it when you figure out how many calories you need, that isn’t even very accurate because there are so many different variables involved. i think berardi calls it the “X factor” or something.
Caloric content of meat, whether chicken or beef is usually in the cooked stated.
Chicken – ~9g/oz
Beef – ~8g/oz
Patricia your post dosent make sense to me. Why would cooking the meat increase the amount of protien in it? where did this extra protien come from?
i think what she was trying to say is that if you have 4 oz of meat raw and cook it, it turns out to be a lot less. after it is cooked it might be 3 oz because of all the juice it lost. if you have 5 oz of meat and cook it, it turns into 4 oz. so the 4 oz raw to 4 oz cooked comparison is just showing how when you cook it, it becomes more dense. the 4 oz cooked, was actually more like 5 oz raw, so thats how it contains more protein.
I didn’t see the question directed to me (oops!). But thanks, Nic: wild applause - you got it!
So protein for cooked chicken is ~4g per oz, right? I have been using this standard ever since i started lifting, about a year and a half ago.
Okay, in my “Nutrition Facts Desk Reference” by Art Ulene, they use 1oz, 4oz or 1lb.
For raw chicken breast there's a either a 1lb or a 1oz. For cooked (roasted), there's a 4oz. Ko just did some math work and figured out the numbers. So, there's where we came up with them figures.
I use McCance and widdowsons composition of foods 5th edition which gives nutrition values for most meats/foods in both raw and several cooked states (depending on the method of cooking) - the only problem with this book is that it is British which means the values have been worked out for British produce and may not be applicable for some of your american foods due to various factors, but I am sure you guys have an american equivalent.
I don’t know why the hell i wrote 4, i guess i was thinking of calorie content per gram of protein. I meant ~8g of protein per oz. Sorry.