Weighing Food

[rebecky]

I have just been kinda guesstimating when it comes to measuring my food, but am thinking about getting a food scale today. I know this might sound stupid (I have never weighed food before) but I am assuming you have to put the food into some kind of container before you can set it on the scale....so what do you use, and secondly do you weigh the container empty so that you can subtract that weight from the food?

Any help would be appreciated! :)

[msjames]

Hi Becky,

I recently brought a kitchen scale myself. To weigh food, I set a napkin or a paper plate on the scale and lay my food on top of it. I never worry about subtracting the weight of the napkin or paper plate because I know that they weigh next to nothing. Some scales come with their own containers. I think that for these types of scales, the scale has been preadjucted to account to the weight of the container. But, I am just guessing about that though.

[Natrushka]

Becky, the ones with the containers have a little dial just like your bathroom scales so you can adjust up /down until it registers 0.

Kitchen scales are a great idea. You may be surprized to find out just how little 4 oz of chicken is!

Nat

[Cinderella]

There's usually a tiny little knob/screw either behind or beside weigh plate. it adjusts so that when you put a container on the scale...you adjust the scale back to "0". Even when you use the plate that comes with the scale..make sure it is back to "0", as it gets knocked around when washed or moved.

cin

[Karen]

On home digital scales, there is a tare feature. Put on the container, hit tare and reading goes to zero. The you add the ingredient you are weighing.

I use a Salter Electronic Aquatronic scale and am very happy with it. It was around $70.00 CDN.

Karen

[doreen T]

As Karen said, the tare feature allows you to rezero after each ingredient, so in fact you can weigh multiple ingredients in the one container. I use a digital postal scale, and it measures in 1 gram or 0.1 ounce increments, up to 5 lbs/ 2.2 kg.

I tend to measure mostly carb foods ... 200 grams of broccoli can be anywhere from 1½ to 2½ cups, depending on the size of pieces it's cut into. Plus seeds and nuts ... especially if I've ground them up. Much more accurate.

Doreen

[rebecky]

Now I know what to look for when shopping for my scales. Karen, I am going to look for the Salter brand that you mentioned, and at only around 45.50 U.S. I like the idea of being able to weigh more than one ingredient, as I often cook mixed veggies.

Thanks again.