Weighing pasta without scales

[MicroCrisis]

I have had a rather bad run of luck with scales recently, having to return two faulty sets and not in the mood to purchase another just now whist awaiting refunds. One of my faulty sets was quite expensive so it has made me a bit wary.

Seeing as I only wish to use them for weighing pasta, is there any other way (bar using a cup) of doing so? Is there a way to determine calorie by strand or piece?

Cups are useless as the shapes vary so much but not a lot of info online concerning cals per piece. One site suggested 3 cals per piece of rigatoni, but not sure.
I am hoping someone at some point measured the calorie per grams and took a photo, say 15 pieces of penne are 100 cals, etc.

Any ideas?

When I weigh out standard size twists, shells etc it seems that each piece is a 1g

So you could count

Thank you! I am sure I heard that, although some do weight more than others, I'm not really worried about mathematical exactness, just a good idea of the rough cals.

I have found a site called caloriefriend, god knows if it's any good, but it seems an average of 14 pieces of penne come to 56cals, so I would likely double that for a main meal.

For 2 people, add enough pasta to the size of the bowl or plate you will be eating from to represent 1 portion. When it's cooked it roughly doubles in size so you will end up with enough for 2. Works every time.

A pic from the site...

Just in case anyone else may be interested and doesn't have a set of scales, lol, here is another image from an older MN post where the pp had measured 100 cals of pasta and kindly shared a photo of it!

It is 60g cooked weight at 100cals (25g dry).
As we can see, there are around 25 ish pieces here, but it seems to vary all over the web. This image suggests each piece of penne is 1 calorie/gram. Other places suggest it to be 3g per piece so god only knows. Somewhat helpful if you don't have scales!

Seems like a small amount but excellent portion for a side.

I just weighed my fusilli. 10g was 8 pieces.

I never weigh pasta, or rice. I have a straight sided mug I use. A full mug of pasta does 2.5 people ie 2 adults, one child.

If you aren’t stressed about exactness, I’d gauge it by the bag and dry weight. The standard sized bag is 500g. If you need 100g, take 1/5 of the bag. If you are going for toddler sized amounts, put half back and you’ll have roughly 50g.

I don't diet or count generally, but have a thing about pasta because it eludes me a little.
I prefer it to be a side or quarter of my meal, so would prefer a way to gauge it.

I don't really go for full bowls as I have IBS and like to keep it minimal. I make up for it with the veg and protein, so definitely not bird sized amounts!

I like the 'northern pasta' brand who do a lovely spelt rigatoni, their website gives a reading as 90g at around 223 cals. That would overwhelm my meals so prefer about half of that. I do slash on a good amount of pesto tho!

toddler

I’ve been wanting to find this out as I also have no scales!!