Bacon macros question - raw vs cooked

food
(Murphy Kismet) #1

It occurred to me recently that the enormous amount of fat grams in the bacon that we eat might only be for the RAW bacon! When we cook the bacon—stove or oven—there is always a lot of liquid fat left over, which we keep of course.

I mean, it’s a LOT of fat:

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These 3 slices puts me over half of my day’s “allowance” of fat. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

And then I remembered how Health Canada changed how it allows kombucha manufacturers to list their nutritional facts: they must list how much sugar was used during production, NOT what is left over. This effectively made kombucha out to be more carby than it actually is.

Could this be the same with bacon, macros for RAW bacon? If so, how would I go about figuring out the actual macros of cooked bacon?

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #2

That’s a lot of fat on those bacon strips. I normally don’t see bacon with those macros.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #3

This makes bacon really hard to estimate tracking. Are you cooking it raw in a pot of greens? Is it thick and you like your bacon juicy and not crisp? I look through packs of bacon and choose the ones I like. Do you choose leaner or fattier looking packs? Are you tracking the bacon by slices or weight? See my point… this is why I only really focus on carb accuracy when tracking. Meat fat to protein ratios are pretty variable. Even ground meats because nobody is sitting there weighing out lean and fat portions. It’s all just estimates even carbs. Vegetables are going to vary on sugar content through the season. So my advice is to see tracking as ballpark estimates rather than exact macro tallying.

For me I cook the bacon and weigh it after. If I use the fat I account for it separately. I don’t know if it’s correct but seeing how the meat varies so much I don’t know if it matters. Carbs are what I focus on now even though I track it all. As unpopular as it is I have started to focus on the grams of carbs but with protein and fat I look at percentage of macros, I try to keep fat between 68-70% to balance protein but even that I don’t worry about on a daily basis.

#4

Method and madness.

Take raw bacon.

Weigh it.

Cook bacon.

Weigh the cooked bacon.

Pour the fat in a pre-weighed jar.

Weigh fat minus jar weight.

Add cooked bacon + cooked bacon grease.

Subtract cooked components from raw weight.

That was the pig’s soul…

That was water evaporation.

Or, cut the visible fat off the bacon and weigh it separately and treat it as a separate food.

Cook it all together.

Throw in sliced mushrooms to carry the fat from the pan.

Eat.

(Murphy Kismet) #5

Hi @David_Stilley

This validates my feelings for a while, that tracking is mindbogglingly complicated without precise food measuring tools, and self-measuring tools to see what our bodies need at certain times, etc.
And all those ways of altering the macros…

@FrankoBear
Thank you for that breakdown :smiley: I probably would have figured that out myself, but my brain isn’t functioning optimally these days thanks to a head cold, but my mind can come up with some wacked out ideas that need fleshing out lol

#6

Those cold and flu medications can be hallucinogenic. Hope you recover quickly.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

Please remember that your “allowance” of fat is the amount necessary to satisfy your hunger after you have eaten your (less than) 20 g of carbohydrate and however much protein you need to maintain your muscle mass and bone density. Ignore the amount of fat your app is telling you to eat. You are not required to eat more fat, if you find yourself satisfied with less; nor are you required to stop eating if you find you need more fat to satisfy your hunger.

Most especially, do not intentionally eat a caloric deficit, because your metabolism will slow down to match. If you eat to satisfy hunger, your metabolism will stay revved up, and you will burn off more fat that way.