Broccoli raw vs cooked
 

why is it when on FD that broccoli cooked from raw is more calories than just plain raw broccoli? if i steam my veggies i never add butter or anything so how would the calories then be more? normally i tend to eat my veggies raw as i feel they are better for me that way, but i was just wondering.

I'm pretty sure it's because most veggies cook down a little bit, so one cup raw ends up being less than a cup cooked. This might be more evident with something like mushrooms or spinach where the cooking down process is easy to see. Something like broccoli won't be as noticable probably. As for how you log it into fit day, if you measure a cup raw and steam it, you can probably enter it as a cup raw since that's what you started with. It's like the decision to enter meats as raw or cooked. As long as you're being accurate and consistent, it probably doesn't matter.

check out strawberries - 1 cup fresh = 60-something calories, frozen = 220 cal's??!

that makes sense.

frozen vs fresh strawberries that is a strange one as well...lol

I think the difference with frozen fruits is the potential for sugar being added. I'm careful to buy unsweetened frozen fruit and I put them in as a custom food so I know my calorie count is accurate.

yup i've done the same myself.

I'm sure this is taking into account food purchased already cooked. I eat a lot of broccoli and it doesn't have 7 grm of fat unless you add some. I just use the raw and adjust for cookdown, which in my case isn't very much since they are essentially blanched. :]

I know this question is long dead but I felt compelled to chime in since the answers provided were incredibly wrong.

I can explain this phenomenon for you very easily:

1) A calorie is a unit of energy.

2) When you consumes a piece of broccoli your body uses energy to break it down.

3) Raw broccoli is much harder to break down than cooked broccoli therefore it uses up more energy.

4) Since the raw broccoli is using more energy to be consumed, it's calorie count is lower than cooked broccoli.

Make sure you are utilizing the search to its potential. I am finding several listings for Strawberries, one is Frozen, the other is Frozen, unsweetened. The same holds true for the vegetables. Don't just take the first option. "Broccoli, frozen, spears, boiled, drained, no added salt" is an option in the database. 1 cup is 51.5 calories. In order to win your battle you might have to cross over some obstacle courses. But isn't that what this is all about? Not accepting the first option?

The answers given are not necessarily incorrect. While there is some truth to the fact that cooked vegetables can have slightly more calories due to starches generated in cooking, that is not what this question refers to. If you search "broccoli, cooked" in FitDay, you get about 103 calories per cup. If you search raw, you get about 30 calories per cup. The difference in cooked and raw forms does not account for 70 calories, no way, and no matter how much more your body supposedly has to work to break it down. The FitDay search function is such that you have to specify cooked, fat not added in cooking in order to obtain the accurate measure, if that indeed is how it was prepared, as Frenchhen noted above. Same goes for frozen fruits; for some reason it assumes sugared unless you specify.

I always weigh my vegetables raw and then cook them. Once they're cooked into a soup I can't take them back out to weigh each vegetable very easily. lol At least I imagine that would make a big mess with broth everywhere.

I like the taste of raw cauliflower and cabbage but I can't eat it anymore or at least I feel I should cut back on that, because I was told I have subclinical hypothryroidism so I read that I should avoid raw goitrogenic vegetables. It's a shame because when I was cooking them I'd eat some raw and some cooked and that was fun.

Just wanted to throw out this idea...I have never been a broccoli fan, but last summer a friend charcoal-grilled some, and it was delicious. It totally changed the texture. I'm in love! :eek:

Thank you for this response - - it was helpful and answered a lot of questions !

I've been eating a lot of broccoli lately (kind of tired of it now). I usually buy the florets, frozen. It's amazing what a nice hefty-looking bag of frozen vegetables produces, once the contents have been cooked. I can smoosh that cooked broccoli into a cup measure and wonder at how small it got...

Did You Know?
 

Cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli, should only be eaten cooked if you have a slow metabolism.
Eating raw cruciferous vegetables actually suppresses your thyroid's hormone production, creating fatigue, coldness in your body and a slowing of your metabolism. Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, mustard greens, radishes, rutabagas and turnips.

I like all the dishes with lots of veggies in it as it makes food healthy and tasty too.

Hi, I always want a cooked Broccoli than the raw one. But, I don't overcooked them because I was advise by my mom that it destroys the beneficial enzyme. I have read too that raw vegetables has more nutrients than the cooked one.

A lot of foods including veggies and meats lose a fair bit of moisture and size when cooked. Therefore the weight is different pre vs post cooking.

Cooking broccoli can concentrate its sugars and reduce water content, making calories appear higher per serving by weight, even without added fats; steaming doesn’t add calories, but changes texture and density, so cooked broccoli weighs less and seems calorie-dense compared to raw.