Why weights change in the pan
Food rarely weighs the same before and after cooking. Meat, poultry and fish lose water and melted fat, so they shrink. Pasta, rice, grains and dried legumes absorb water, so they swell. When a recipe, a meal plan or a nutrition label gives a weight, it matters whether it means raw or cooked.
How the calculator works
Each food has a typical cooked ÷ raw factor:
- Cooked weight = raw weight × factor
- Raw weight = cooked weight ÷ factor
You can pick a food from the list or enter your own factor, for example after weighing a batch before and after cooking.
Typical factors
| Food | Cooked ÷ raw |
|---|---|
| Beef steak or roast, chicken breast, pork | about 0.75 |
| Ground beef | about 0.72 |
| Fish fillet | about 0.80 |
| Shrimp | about 0.85 |
| Bacon | about 0.35 |
| Dry pasta | about 2.3 |
| White rice | about 2.8 |
| Brown rice | about 2.5 |
| Quinoa | about 2.7 |
| Dried lentils | about 2.5 |
| Dried beans or chickpeas | about 2.4 |
These are averages. Rare meat keeps more water than well-done meat, grilling loses more than braising, and pasta cooked al dente absorbs less water than soft pasta.
Example
One pound (16 oz) of raw beef steak cooks down to about 16 × 0.75 = 12 oz. Split into four servings, that is 4 oz raw and 3 oz cooked per person. In the other direction, if a meal plan calls for 6 oz of cooked rice, you need about 6 ÷ 2.8 = 2.1 oz of dry rice.
Tracking macros
Nutrition databases, such as USDA FoodData Central, list both raw and cooked entries. The calories and protein in a piece of chicken do not change much when it is cooked, but they are spread over less weight, so cooked chicken has more protein per ounce. Logging a cooked weight against a raw entry, or the reverse, is one of the most common errors when counting macros. Weighing food raw, then using the raw entry, is the most consistent method.