Yield factor
A yield factor is the ratio of a food's cooked weight to its raw weight, used to convert between the two; rice sits near 2.5 to 3, meat near 0.7, and it varies with method and duration.
A yield factor is the bridge between the two ways of weighing food. Multiply raw weight by the factor to predict cooked weight; divide cooked weight by it to recover raw.
Typical ranges
Rice and most grains land somewhere between 2.5 and 3 depending on how much water is used. Dried lentils and beans are similar or a little higher. Pasta is around 2.2 to 2.5. Meat and fish go the other way, typically 0.65 to 0.8 after roasting or grilling, more loss with longer cooking. Vegetables vary wildly: leafy greens collapse, root vegetables barely move.
Why published factors are only a guide
Your stove, your lid, your water and your patience all move the number. A pressure cooker and an open pot do not produce the same yield from the same rice.
The version that works in a kitchen
Measure your own, once, for the three or four staples you cook constantly. Weigh the raw grain, weigh what comes out, divide. Write it down. From then on you can weigh cooked food and convert accurately for your kitchen rather than for the average of a national survey — which is how you get the convenience of cooked weighing with the reliability of raw.
स्रोत
- 1.Food energy: methods of analysis and conversion factors — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- 2.FAO/INFOODS food composition databases — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
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