Dear Wondering,

This is a great question. While standard measuring cups and spoons are really helpful, there are many cases where they just won't do the trick. A food scale is pretty much essential if you're counting calories and/or watching your weight. Here's the full 411...

Nutritional info is almost always based on weight; the measurements are just estimates. Weighing your food lets you know exactly how much you're eating and how many calories you're taking in. Think about this: Let's say you're snacking on 1/4 cup of walnuts. The number of calories and amount of fat in that portion could vary greatly depending on whether the walnuts are whole, chopped, broken, or a little bit of all three. Weighing the nuts will tell you exactly how much you're eating, and allow you to calculate accurate nutritional info. It's smart to weigh all calorie-dense foods -- nuts, meat, pasta, grains, etc.

Serving sizes for staple foods can be misleading. For example, you may have read that a medium baked sweet potato has around 100 calories... but that's based on a 4-oz. potato. Now, I love sweet potatoes. But here at the HG HQ, we've found that a "medium" sweet potato is closer to 8 ounces, which clocks in at about 200 calories. Obviously, terms like small, medium, and large are subjective. That's why a food scale is so important. 

Another benefit: The scale will give you truly accurate serving sizes for packaged foods. When it comes to chips, snack mixes, and other packaged foods, the serving size is often presented in weight with an approximate measurement. For example, the label might say there are 150 calories in "1 oz. (about 10 chips)." But if you toss those chips on a scale and realize that 7 chips is what's actually equal to an ounce, a 10-chip serving would have closer to 215 calories! That's a big difference.

Last but not least, using a food scale will help you learn what common serving sizes look like, making it easier to eyeball portions when you're out and about. Now when you order a baked sweet potato at a restaurant (such a smart side dish), and the one you’re served is enormous, you'll know about how much you can have for that 100-calorie price tag. (Pssst… Pack up the rest, and have another serving tomorrow. Yay!)

Ready to get yourself a food scale? Look for a digital scale that gives results in both grams and ounces. These are fairly inexpensive and such a good thing to have on hand. Click here for the one we use in the HG test kitchen!