Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What’s the reason for measuring everything by volume?

  • HatchetHaro
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    7 months ago

    Chicken breast is generally measured in “pieces”.

    If you’re measuring a whole chicken breast by weight, what are you going to do if a piece exceeds the weight called for in the recipe? Are you just going to cut off the excess bits? And where would those excess bits go? The bin? The freezer, perhaps, but which recipe would call for “just a sliver of chicken”? Would you rather not just keep that excess weight in and have a bit more chicken in your meal just to avoid all the fuss?

    I wouldn’t measure chicken at all.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      If you’re tracking hoe much you eat (which you should do) you’ll need to measure how much chicken you’re eating.

      Also I regularly cut chicken breasts in half so I can have 1.5 pieces to make 2 meals with roughly 190g of chicken each.

      • HatchetHaro
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        7 months ago

        I’m gonna be honest, being anal about exactly how much chicken I eat sounds like a miserable time.

        Sure, track salt intake and carbs as portions for those are more easily controlled without leaving awkward amounts of food trimmed off, but chicken?

        Like you demonstrated, just halve the pieces, in which case weighing the chicken is pointless as it’s already roughly where you want it.

        • gmtom@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I’m gonna be honest, being anal about exactly how much chicken I eat sounds like a miserable time

          Mate. You think taking 15 seconds to place your chicken on a scales is misery? Seriously? Or are you just coming up with justifications to support the way you currently do things?

          without leaving awkward amounts of food trimmed off

          Again, literally nobody is saying you should trim bits of chicken off, just that you should know how much you’re eating so you can track calories and macro nutrients. Which is super easy especially if you’re already weighing out carbs or other food.

          • HatchetHaro
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            7 months ago

            You’re just putting words in my mouth at this point. I’m saying that being anal about precisely measuring my food sounds like a miserable time, nothing about scales or justifications for “how I do things” (which is how everybody here, where I am, does things).

            Secondly, the discussion from the beginning was about measuring ingredients for cooking, not for calorie tracking. It’s evident that your priority in this is for calorie tracking, which is an entirely different subject and I can see that having a scale to be able to do so would be beneficial, but that is none of my concern. My entire point is about measuring ingredients for cooking, which I just generally don’t care getting too precise about.

            So to answer your question “How do you measure chicken breast?” more clearly: I don’t. I have no need to measure chicken breast. I just eyeball it.

            And while I applaud you for trying to be health-conscious and count your calories, I simply just do not care about doing so for myself. You do you, but do not preach it to me, for I have no need for it.