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    Best Food Scales

    We tested 10 food scales—including models from Escali, Oxo, and Taylor—for accuracy and ease of use and found that some digital and analog models had their pros and cons

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    animated gif of Escali scale with glass bowl and reaching in and pouring mixed berries into bowl on scale, cutting board with mixed berries and knife to the side
    The Escali Primo was one of 10 food scales CR tested in its labs.
    Gif: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports

    If you’re learning to cook, buy yourself a good set of chef’s knives and a reliable cookware set. When you’re ready to turn yourself into a great cook or baker, invest in a food scale.

    A food scale is essential during food prep to measure ingredients accurately for consistent results. If you aren’t perfectly packing flour or baking soda into a measuring cup, being off by an ounce can affect the taste and appearance of cakes, muffins, and cookies. But the numbers on a scale usually don’t lie—if your lemon cake calls for 285 grams of flour, that’s the exact number your scale should read. And even if you aren’t a baker, imagine a world in which a recipe calls for 4 ounces of chicken, and you can measure 4 ounces of chicken on your scale instead of eyeballing the portion size and taking an educated guess.

    More On Cooking

    But kitchen scales aren’t always accurate, nor are they all easy to use. CR tested 10 scales—eight digital and two analog—for accuracy, precision, and ease of use and discovered they varied quite a bit in performance. Our digital scales performed better measuring small weights, while our analog scales were better at measuring more significant amounts weighing 20 grams or more. Owning an analog scale also means setting it up and calibrating it (more on that later). However, four scales—three digital and one analog—came out on top in both categories based on their consistent performances.

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    Lisa Fogarty

    Lisa Fogarty is a senior multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports. She studied journalism at Columbia University and has written numerous health, parenting, fitness, and wellness articles for The New York Times, Psychology Today, Vogue, and NPR. Lisa is passionate about mental health and is a co-creator of The Hunger Trap Podcast, which focuses on eating disorders. In her spare time she surfs, plays the guitar, and kickboxes. Follow her on X: @lisacfogarty