food weights

This may be a dumb question, but when you weigh meat do you weigh it before or after you cook it?  I haven't had my surgery yet. but I am trying to get this all figured out before I do.

Short answer: all meat and poultry nutrition information on the package refer to raw, uncooked weight.

Long answer: There is a lot of confusion over the issue. I used to ask a lot of nutritionists and dietitians, and they were split 50-50. That's because of a lack of government regulation prior to 2012.

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing the nutrition information labels for food, EXCEPT for meat and poultry, which were under control of the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture required no nutrition information labels. So for meat, we were left with some independent sources that figured nutrition information cooked, and some did it raw. And confused everyone.

In 2012, the FDA said screw you to the Department of Agriculture, and began requiring nutrition information for raw meat and poultry, but only the 40 most popular cuts. Nutrition info is by the ounce, unless it has been made into a patty, then it is by the patty, whatever its size. They are only required to provide calories, total fat, saturated fat, and if ground meat, fat percentage. Any other information, such as protein, etc, is done voluntarily by the manufacturer.

I weigh it after but I'm sure that may be incorrect.

I was wondering about this too.  Thanks Grim for the  detailed info - great stuff to know!

Thank you for the responses, I am just trying to absorb everything, I don't want to make mistakes once my surgery is done!

I do hope they are taking into consideration all of the water they pump into it before we cook it. That drives me nuts, because - in my brain - you lose 10% of what you pay for after you cook it