Raw and cooked:

The weight of a food therefore varies according to 2 factors:

INTRINSIC COMPOSITION influenced by "waste" (e.g. peel, stone) and by the quantity of water and fibres; COOKING METHOD (boiling, frying, pan cooking, etc.).

Each food varies its weight during cooking in a different way. Let's take carrots and spinach for example: they are both vegetables, but the former are more fibrous and hydrated. Same food group but different intrinsic composition, and, consequently, different post-cooking weight variation. Foods belonging to the same food group vary in weight fairly evenly.

In particular, we know that:

• Pasta and grain cereals increase their weight by 2-2.5 times;

• Fresh egg pasta increases its weight by 3 times;

• Meat and fish, by losing water, tend to decrease by up to 35%;

• Cooked legumes triple their weight compared to raw ones;

• Except for a few, such as savoy cabbage and cabbage, all vegetables lose between 10 and 20% of their weight. This can help us understand the raw weight very quickly. Indeed, to convert the weight of a cooked food, it is necessary to divide its weight by its conversion factor.

PASTA When cooked, pasta and rice weigh 100-120% more. For 100 g of raw short pasta there will be 202 g of cooked pasta, for 100 g of raw long pasta there will be 244 g of cooked, for 100 g of raw rice there will be 260 g of cooked rice; 100 g of fresh egg pasta correspond to 290-300 g of cooked pasta.

MEAT The rules to follow for weighing cooked and raw foods vary greatly when it comes to meat, also based on the size of the piece. If boiled meat is prepared, the food can lose up to 30-40% and 1 kg of raw product becomes 600-700 g of cooked. If you roast meat, the variation depends on the type: 100 g of chicken or turkey becomes 90 g when cooked; 100 g of beef or pork, on the other hand, can weigh 70-75 g.