Real Life Nutrition Questions Answered
printReal Life Fitness Questions Answered
Emma Brown
Nutritionist
Janet Aylott
Nutritionist
Kelly Marshall
Fitness Consultant
Q.
What's the calorie difference in raw/cooked food?
Up until now I have been using the calorific value of my food when it is raw. (i.e. before I have cooked it). But I have noticed that food is higher in calories once it is cooked. Two questions. 1: Is the difference great enough to worry about? (it's far easier entering raw values) 2: Does a hot piece of roast chicken, for example, have more calories than the same piece of chicken left to cool?
A.
Our expert says...
Thanks for your question - it’s an interesting one. Basically you should be safe using either the raw or cooked values as they should both work as long as you do accurate weighing (of the raw product if you are using raw values, or of the cooked if you are doing cooked). At its simplest, a raw food will have a different moisture content per 100g than a cooked one, so this will reflect in the calorie content per 100g of the food. Provided you don't add oil or fat, a raw food will have the same amount of calories when cooked, but it will weight differently which is why values of raw and cooked food can look conflicting. When you take the raw and cooked weight into account the calories count should work out about the same.
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