The Daily Balance

When the Mister joined in on all of my healthy practices and endeavors this year (i.e. joining me at the gym, taking an active interest in cooking, etc.), I knew it wouldn’t be long before the gadgets came out. See, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the Mister is a bit of a ‘techie” (no, not trekkie– although, he is one of those, too ).

Little did I know just how much he could infiltrate his techie ways into our healthy living routines. I showed you last week how I’ve started using ‘Lose it!’ on the iPhone,  but the gizmo that I’m about to share today has already proved its worth in my kitchen. Another point for the Mister!

What is this mysterious gizmo, you ask? My friends, it is nothing more than a simple digital food scale.

See, once the Mister started helping me with the cooking, he couldn’t understand why I didn’t even bother to accurately measure my ingredients before chucking them into the bowl/pot/whatever wasted so much time making sure I measured everything perfectly. Using his technology-seeking mind, he knew there had to be a tool to help. Enter: the digital food scale. After researching several models, he finally decided on the EatSmart Precision Pro.

EatSmart Precision Pro (image credit: buy.com)

We’ve been using it for several months now, and I’ve gotta tell ya — this thing is pretty awesome!

Let me break it down for you…

Have you ever tried to bake a delicious treat only to end up with something that didn’t achieve the accolades the recipe promised? Yea, me too. Well, after reading an article from Cooking Light touting the benefits of the kitchen scale, I learned the culprit could very well be the flour. See, baking with flour leaves VERY little room for error (especially with light baking), and even a couple extra tablespoons will leave you with a treat that would serve better as a doorstopper. With a digital scale, you’re able to slowly add the flour until the scale reaches the gram weight you desire. No more measuring cups!

I’ve also found that the digital scale has kept me accountable with my portion sizes. For example, my huge overflowing bowl of Puffins? Yea, that’s like 3 servings. My heaping mounds of peanut butter? Probably close to 2 or 3 servings — way more than my wishful thinking would like.

I’ve also discovered first hand just how much food manufacturers deceive us! I know, right?! The horror! Yes, sometimes a “cup” does not equal the gram weight for one serving (and I’m sure you know better than to think the under-estimate!)

While it’s fun to double-check portion sizes and keep myself accountable, I mainly use the scale for cooking and portion control. For example, I know that my Shrimp Summer Salad weighed 1710 grams total. So, for 1/6 of the recipe (suggested serving size, and also only 141 calories), I know to serve myself 285 grams. See how easy?

Do you use a food scale? What foodie/fitness gadget can’t you live without?