Sport calories in raw vs. cooked meat

Sport Fitness
Ex: You have a raw 5oz turkey burger that has 270 calories (44g protein, 1g carbs, 10g fat). When cooked, it will probably be more like 4oz. Does that mean that the calories go down to 4oz numbers like 33g protein, 0-1g carbs, and 8g fat? Or is the weight just lower but the calories and macros are the same?
 
you mostly lost water so the numbers will be relatively the same as 5 oz
 
Certain methods of cooking may increase fat content due to use of oil. Cooking also slightly reduces the amount of usable protein, but not by any significant amount, you mostly just cook the water out and heat it up :p
 
Everything stays the same after.

The only thing that changes is usually the cooked weight of the meat which declines however all macronutrient properties stay the same.
 
In the case of a turkey burger (and most meat that is already lean), all that's changing is mass decreasing by roughly 50% due to water loss.

So, cooked turkey burgers (or chicken breast, for example) are roughly "twice as much" as the same mass of raw. Just make sure you measure it either raw or cooked, and use the appropriate nutritional data. Often on packages, if it comes raw, they will be indicating the raw figures, and vice versa (cooked = cooked calories) unless otherwise indicated.

In your case, you know the raw data, so just use that. What it weighs after cooking is irrelevant, unless you are using nutritional information that assumes it is cooked (which you clearly are not). Basically, what LV said. Everything is the same, don't worry about it. :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help, and that's what I would have thought, but there's something I still don't understand.

Cooked meat has much more protein and fat per ounce due to the loss of water. Understood. Also, turkey, beef, chicken, etc. all have an average of about 8 grams of protein per ounce cooked. Usually the raw version is like 5-7 grams of protein per ounce. In this case, it's indicating that the raw turkey burger has over 8 grams of protein per ounce. Can that really be right?
 
Back
Top