Cup used for weighing food?

sarumbear

Hi

I'm new to this forum. If this question belongs to another forum please accept my apologies and point me to the right place.

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

I step into this issue when trying to calculate calories for some foods like cucumber, carrot, parsnip.

There is a database entry of 1 cup parsnips at 100 calories. According to support this would be translated to 226 grams, which means 100 grams of parnips is 42 calories. Meanwhile, the database has an entry for 1oo grams of Asda British parsnips at 123 calories. That is 2.9 times discrepancy on a vegetable which only a single variety exists. Can you see the problem? I think this caused by using wrong unit to measure items.

Besides, can you see yourself measuring a physical cup of parsnip, or cucumber, or carrots?

I like MyFittnessPal, especially the iPad app is great, but if the database is wrong the USP is gone and it becomes just a calculator.

Riza

janejellyroll

You should be using a scale, not a cup, to measure solid item.

erockem

Agreed, I got 2 different ones from ebay. Both still work great after 4 years. Paid less than $7 each w/free shipping.

kitchen scales

Mycophilia

This is why I read the nutritional info per 100g on the package of whatever I'm eating. Weigh the food, do some math and then make my own entry into the food diary.

aliciamariaq

When I first started out on MFP, this link helped me a lot to understand how and what to weigh. It totally makes sense and a lot easier than it sounds once you get the hang of it.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1

TavistockToad

janejellyroll wrote: »

You should be using a scale, not a cup, to measure solid item.

This

ncboiler89

sarumbear wrote: »

Hi

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

This is why the metric system runs circles around the US standard weights and measures because, to an extent, volume and weights are interchangeable. In the metric system one milliliter of water is one gram! It's the definition of a gram. So 236ml of water = 236grams. How awesome is that!? Of course that is only for water and is not as accurate as the specific gravity of the fluid changes however with almost any fluid you can get a reasonable estimation of the weigh by knowing the volume in metric units. For example if you weigh out 100 grams of milk you are going to be very close to 100 milliliters.

However in the US system a fluid ounce and an ounce of weight are two different things and it's not a good idea to talk about them in the same context.

shadowfax_c11

Cups measure volume. Scales measure mass. You can't weigh anything with a cup.

Use a scale to weigh your parsnips. Save the cups for measuring liquids.

ProcrastinationIsMyCrime

Think of it this way. A sponge cake is light and fluffy because of its low density. A mud cake is heavy on the other hand and has a higher density.

Imagine you've got a slice of each, same size and height.

Put each on a set of scales on the other hand the outcome will be very different. The mud cake will weigh more because of the higher density. Same concept with fruit and veg.

ProcrastinationIsMyCrime

Sorry if I got any mouths watering there!

TimothyFish

You asked support for what?

I have a scale that is supposed to be able to convert weight into cups, so I assume it uses some weight per cup number to determine that. But I never use that feature. For that matter, I rarely use the scale at all.

F00LofaT00K

A cup does not measure weight. A "fluid ounce" is the volume of water needed to weigh one ounce. The use of the word "ounce" is kind of pointless because cups do not measure weight; they measures the volume of things. A fluid ounce of maple syrup will weight more than a fluid ounce of water. Fluid ounce is not weight and should only be used for measuring liquid portions like milk, beer, juice, etc.

An actual scale that weighs grams, pounds, ounces, etc. measures the actual weight. This should be used for measuring the weight of solid foods like cereal, ice cream, vegetables, meat, etc.

If you use cups to measure solid foods, you will get vastly differing results. A tablespoon of peanut butter typically has more calories than if you measure it by weight. I seem to get more ice cream if I weigh it than if I use a measuring cup. The serving sizes listed as cups are just a general reference to guide the eye. Most people don't know what 39g of oatmeal looks like... but they know what half a cup of oatmeal looks like. It is an estimate and nothing more. Weight your solids and be safe!

earlnabby

ncboiler89 wrote: »

sarumbear wrote: »

Hi

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

However in the US system a fluid ounce and an ounce of weight are two different things and it's not a good idea to talk about them in the same context.

You are wrong. Water is the only substance with a specific gravity of 1, therefore an ounce of water also weighs an ounce, just like a liter also weighs a kilo. Now, if you are talking an ounce in the UK, that is different. A UK ounce is slightly larger than a US ounce which is why a UK pint is actually 19 US ounces rather than 16.

ETA: I agree that grams is better for measuring

ncboiler89

earlnabby wrote: »

ncboiler89 wrote: »

sarumbear wrote: »

Hi

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

However in the US system a fluid ounce and an ounce of weight are two different things and it's not a good idea to talk about them in the same context.

You are wrong. Water is the only substance with a specific gravity of 1, therefore an ounce of water also weighs an ounce, just like a liter also weighs a kilo. Now, if you are talking an ounce in the UK, that is different. A UK ounce is slightly larger than a US ounce which is why a UK pint is actually 19 US ounces rather than 16.

ETA: I agree that grams is better for measuring

Thanks for the correction.

Dragn77

You said it yourself...volume and weight are not interchangeable.

You would not try to figure out how much you weigh with a tape measure, so why try to figure out how much food weighs using measurements for volume? Impossible. Weigh your food.

Zedeff

ncboiler89 wrote: »

sarumbear wrote: »

Hi

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

This is why the metric system runs circles around the US standard weights and measures because, to an extent, volume and weights are interchangeable. In the metric system one milliliter of water is one gram! It's the definition of a gram.

Your "to an extent" caveat applies to only one substance which, ironically in this context, has zero calories and rarely has to be precisely measured. It is also funny that your example undermined the support response in the OP wherein a cup had different volumes and weights.

The US system is silly, arbitrary, and horrendously outdated. The metric system is logical and scalable. Even if you're in the US, you should go metric for food measures.

ncboiler89

Zedeff wrote: »

ncboiler89 wrote: »

sarumbear wrote: »

Hi

I do not understand the cup measurement used for describing weight. I asked support and they said “A cup is 8 fluid ounces, 236. ml, 226 grams”.

Now, every secondary school educated person knows that volume and weigh are not interchangeable and there certainly is no set conversion factor between them as it depends on the item's mass. Where do they come up with that 226 gram then?

This is why the metric system runs circles around the US standard weights and measures because, to an extent, volume and weights are interchangeable. In the metric system one milliliter of water is one gram! It's the definition of a gram.

Your "to an extent" caveat applies to only one substance which, ironically in this context, has zero calories and rarely has to be precisely measured. It is also funny that your example undermined the support response in the OP wherein a cup had different volumes and weights.

No, the 'to an extent' does not apply to only water. It applies perfectly to water and to an extent to other liquids (such as milk). OP was confused about why 236ml is equal to 236 grams (because 8 ounces = 236ml = 236 grams I think OP mistyped when he she said 226 grams) when logically weights and volumes are two different things. I was pointing out that 236ml by definition is 236 grams and that metric volumes can be used to estimate the metric weights of other liquids.

jennifershoo

Food scale.

sarumbear

I think I was not clear on the purpose of my post. I do know that cups and grams are not interchangeable and the the former measures volume, the latter weigh. My post is about why MFP doesn't? And, why they have so many entries with meaningless measures?

Their USP of the app is the food database, which we can all agree that has many flowed entries. Why are their users, us, not complaining?

TavistockToad

sarumbear wrote: »

I think I was not clear on the purpose of my post. I do know that cups and grams are not interchangeable and the the former measures volume, the latter weigh. My post is about why MFP doesn't? And, why they have so many entries with meaningless measures?

Their USP of the app is the food database, which we can all agree that has many flowed entries. Why are their users, us, not complaining?

It's the users who have added the incorrect entries!

ncboiler89

sarumbear wrote: »

I think I was not clear on the purpose of my post. I do know that cups and grams are not interchangeable and the the former measures volume, the latter weigh. My post is about why MFP doesn't? And, why they have so many entries with meaningless measures?

Their USP of the app is the food database, which we can all agree that has many flowed entries. Why are their users, us, not complaining?

I have never entered anything into the MFP database but I guess any user can. That means the user can put any unit of measure in that he or she wants (maybe there are some controlling parameters I don't know). So if I was going to put in some sort of dry cereal for example I guess I could put in one cup as the serving size. That's not a good idea but I could and MFP doesn't have control of that...at least not now. Maybe at some point in the future it will be smart enough to not allow this but who knows.

sarumbear

Can any user makes an entry to MFP database?

shadow2soul

sarumbear wrote: »

I think I was not clear on the purpose of my post. I do know that cups and grams are not interchangeable and the the former measures volume, the latter weigh. My post is about why MFP doesn't? And, why they have so many entries with meaningless measures?

Their USP of the app is the food database, which we can all agree that has many flowed entries. Why are their users, us, not complaining?

Because those are entries that are created by the users. Some have very wrong information. Some packaged items will have different ingredients (which results in different nutritional values) depending on the country it is from. Things that are fresh vegetables or fruit that have wrong entries are because a user entered the information wrong.

TavistockToad

sarumbear wrote: »

Can any user makes an entry to MFP database?

Yes

shadow2soul

sarumbear wrote: »

Can any user makes an entry to MFP database?

Yes. You can do it on the phone app and on the website.
I tend to make my own entries for things, because I like to weigh everything in grams. If I'm on the website, I'll make sure that the entry isn't shared with others (so my own personal list of foods). If I'm on my phone, it doesn't give me an option so I think it ends up shared with everybody.

Ninkyou

Use weights using a food scale for solids, cups for liquids (unless your food scale has a fl oz option).

earlnabby

The only items I enter are ones that do not already exist and are items with a nutrition label (usually they are local store brands). Otherwise, I am able to find whatever I need among already existing entries. Sometimes you have to do a little math *gasp* but I look for entries that 1) have at least 5 confirmations and 2) list the weight for 100 gram servings. Makes life and logging very simple.

Tip: use "usda" in your search terms. You are more likely to get 100 gram serving sizes with that.

The biggest problem with the bloated database is that people would rather create a new entry rather than just calculate their serving weight from an existing entry.

intrigare

I use the cups measurement when I have to guesstimate how much of something I ate when I didn't bring along a scale (I still haven't brought myself to weigh food at a restaurant or at work, lol.) Indeed its a very inaccurate method, but I think I could guess the volume of something better than I could guess its weight.

All of the entries you find in the database with an asterisk next to them are member-submitted. Anyone can edit these to correct inaccuracies.

MelodyandBarbells

sarumbear wrote: »

I think I was not clear on the purpose of my post. I do know that cups and grams are not interchangeable and the the former measures volume, the latter weigh. My post is about why MFP doesn't? And, why they have so many entries with meaningless measures?

Their USP of the app is the food database, which we can all agree that has many flowed entries. Why are their users, us, not complaining?

Some complain, others DO

There was actually a massive survey conducted by the owner of the site as to why so many duplicate entries exist in the database. This wouldn't apply to whole foods like Bananas, but it turned out that the correct serving or nutritional info may not be the same from one country to the other, or even from one day to the next as companies modify their food contents.

I'm not sure it's been mentioned, but on the web, look for entires without an asterisk next to them to identify entries not created by other users. On the app, I can also identify MFP official whole foods because as mentioned above, they contain multiple serving sizes - like almost a dozen sometimes

sarumbear

Earlnabby, thank you! Using "usda" along with the food name does indeed shows correct entries.

If we can enter into the MFP database, why can't we edit it? There already a system that works pretty well, Wikipedia. MFP can copy the system of editors and have their database sorted.

MelodyandBarbells

sarumbear wrote: »

Earlnabby, thank you! Using "usda" along with the food name does indeed shows correct entries.

If we can enter into the MFP database, why can't we edit it? There already a system that works pretty well, Wikipedia. MFP can copy the system of editors and have their database sorted.

The MFP official entries do not contain the word "USDA", though those may work great for your needs and match the correct nutritional info

You can edit existing entries that are not MyFitnessPal official entries

You may need to learn some of the tool's functionality. Some of the items in here may be a bit dated due to database software updates, but you should give this a quick read:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1