Calories after cooking

I bought some lf ground pork at the grocery store. It was pretty good for
pork, I thought: 4% fat, 1g of sat fat per 4oz serving.

Anyway, there was nutrition information on the back of the package that said
180 calories per 4oz serving, etc. But the nutrition information was for the
raw meat.

Of course, there's the "added water" that evaporates during the cooking
process, and I'm guessing that the caloric density of the food changes when
this happens. Some of the fat drains out of the meat, too.

(All of the above also goes for ground turkey.)

In regards to preparation, I fried the meat along with a tiny spritz of
spray oil.

How do I handle this in terms of determining calories? Are the changes
insignificant?

TIA,

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:08:55 -0700, "em" <i@dun.no> wrote:

>I bought some lf ground pork at the grocery store. It was pretty good for
>pork, I thought: 4% fat, 1g of sat fat per 4oz serving.
>
>Anyway, there was nutrition information on the back of the package that said
>180 calories per 4oz serving, etc. But the nutrition information was for the
>raw meat.
>
>Of course, there's the "added water" that evaporates during the cooking
>process, and I'm guessing that the caloric density of the food changes when
>this happens. Some of the fat drains out of the meat, too.
>
>(All of the above also goes for ground turkey.)
>
>In regards to preparation, I fried the meat along with a tiny spritz of
>spray oil.
>
>How do I handle this in terms of determining calories? Are the changes
>insignificant?

I figure 60 calories per ounce for "trimmed pork steak". Here's a link
that has helped me to lose 160 pounds so far:
http://www.calorieking.com/foods/

--
Zilbandy (602/440/???)

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:43:30 -0700, Zilbandy
<zil@zilbandyREMOVETHIS.com> wrote:

>I figure 60 calories per ounce for "trimmed pork steak". Here's a link
>that has helped me to lose 160 pounds so far:

I forgot to mention... that would be cooked weight. You can look on
the cooking spray can for info on the amount of calories that might
add, but it's most likely negligible.

--
Zilbandy

em wrote:
> I bought some lf ground pork at the grocery store. It was pretty good
> for pork, I thought: 4% fat, 1g of sat fat per 4oz serving.
>
> Anyway, there was nutrition information on the back of the package that
> said 180 calories per 4oz serving, etc. But the nutrition information
> was for the raw meat.
>
> Of course, there's the "added water" that evaporates during the cooking
> process, and I'm guessing that the caloric density of the food changes
> when this happens. Some of the fat drains out of the meat, too.
>
> (All of the above also goes for ground turkey.)
>
> In regards to preparation, I fried the meat along with a tiny spritz of
> spray oil.
>
> How do I handle this in terms of determining calories? Are the changes
> insignificant?

With non-standard meat products (items where there is
no USDA after-cooking nutrition information) the best
you can do is to use the uncooked nutrition information.
Using your example, the calories in the spray oil and
the raw meat are what you would count. That way there's
no chance of underestimating it. At least that's the
way I would do it. I'd rather err on the side of
overestimating than underestimating. With lean meat
there's generally not much fat in the pan after cooking.
I don't know of any practical way to determine the
calorie count of any rendered fat left in the pan.
With that in mind, I generally stick to standard cuts
where I can use after cooking nutrition information
from the USDA (or other trustworthy) database.