Questionable food data

bitberg212

Hi all,
I'm not new to eating keto but I am new to this group. Have there been discussions about incorrect info when adding food to ones diary?
As I finished my Panera Bread Greek Salad last night and went to enter it into my diary I noticed MFP has the Protein at 33g. I knew I had not just eaten 33g of protein so I went to the Panera wbsite to check the nutrition they had listed. It was significantly different.

Panera Nutrition for 1 whole Greek Salad
cal fat sodium carb fiber protein
370 34 1140 11 4 8
Panera Nutrition for 1 whole Greek dressing (3T)
210 23 380 1 0 0
____________________________________________
580 57 1520 12 4 8 Totals

MFP Nutrition for 1 whole Greek Salad with dressing
cal fat sodium carb fiber protein
480 33 1380 14 4 33

I've been happily using MFP to keep track of my macros and generally stay on track. Now I wonder about the accuracy of the data. I'm having success and pretty much know what I can and cannot eat so the numbers don't define my diet but I thought this discrepency was worth mentioning. Any thoughts?

Raynne413

If I'm doing something from a restaurant, I always try to double check the info from the site. If it is only a little different, I don't worry about it. But if it is significantly different, I'll build the item myself.

Dragonwolf

Most of the data is input by users, and when it comes to restaurants and such, it's also entirely possible that the "Greek Salad" that you got isn't the same as the one that person entered, just by virtue of changing recipes. Throw in formula differences between US and non-US foods -- even of the same brands -- and you've got a pretty wide margin of error for some types of things.

There are a few ways to ensure accurate data:

1. Double-check all entries and make use of the "Is this data accurate? Yes/No" thing.
2. Use the ones without an asterisk next to them whenever possible. These are entries verified by MFP and should be accurate.
3. Reuse entries from your "Recent" and "Favorite" tabs as much as possible, since you've already personally vetted them. This saves having to find them over and over again.
4. Enter your own data. This is especially for home made stuff and any restaurant stuff that you've customized. The "Recipes" and "My Meals" tabs are designed for this.
5. Enter items from the restaurant meal individually. This can go as far as the components of the salad (I usually do this if I've heavily modified it), or it can be more along the line of salad sans dressing, then the dressing as a separate entry. This provides more control than the "Big Mac with Medium fry and Large Coke, no mayo, add pickles, extra ketchup" type of entries.

Monklady123

There are some wacky things in the food tracker, that's for sure. The other day I was searching for a particular cereal I'd just eaten and one quantity choice that came up for that cereal was "one bowl". rofl. um....

tlmeyn

Yes, remember that people are entering this data themselves, so error is common. I try to check several entries. Also I notice sometimes people don't care to put in things like sodium. so be mindful of this and last, check the carbs because If it's from Europe for example, their fiber is already subtracted from the carb count....

MissMaggieElizabeth

Tracking at another site made a 21 pound loss for me in 4 months after bouncing up and down for four months. MFP was too far off for me to lose weight. My system is too sensitive to the differences. I was depending on MFP being accurate. NO one has time or energy to check several entries for each item eaten. MFP has a great support forum but not great for food tracking.

CoconuttyMummy

tlmeyn wrote: »

Yes, remember that people are entering this data themselves, so error is common. I try to check several entries. Also I notice sometimes people don't care to put in things like sodium. so be mindful of this and last, check the carbs because If it's from Europe for example, their fiber is already subtracted from the carb count....

@tlmeyn - are you from Europe? Im English, and i wasnt aware that our food labels stated net carbs, not total, until someone told me the other day on this forum. That sucks - I count total carbs, not net.

So i was wondering, to work out Total Carbs (inc fiber) from UK nutritional details, do i just add carbohydrate grams with the fiber grams indicated on the packet?

CoconuttyMummy

MissMaggieElizabeth wrote: »

Tracking at another site made a 21 pound loss for me in 4 months after bouncing up and down for four months. MFP was too far off for me to lose weight. My system is too sensitive to the differences. I was depending on MFP being accurate. NO one has time or energy to check several entries for each item eaten. MFP has a great support forum but not great for food tracking.

Which other tracker site did you use, if you dont mind me asking?

DietPrada

Looks like the entry you used from MFP is generic? It's bound to be significantly different, it's like taking a guess. If it's not in there named by brand or doesn't match the info on the package I have (or the website) I put it in manually. Or don't eat it at all. Either way it's a at best a pretty close estimate, you can never been completely accurate unless you have a lab at home.

AreteAndWhimsy

CoconuttyMummy wrote: »

So i was wondering, to work out Total Carbs (inc fiber) from UK nutritional details, do i just add carbohydrate grams with the fiber grams indicated on the packet?

Yes.

tlmeyn

Sorry for the slow answer. Yes, I am in Norway. It took me until after I added the auto net carb script (only works on a computer, not ios or android) and I had bad values. so yeah, just add the fiber and carb grams together. It's kind of easy to tell where the info comes from, because the US stuff is mostly in ounces and cups, etc, while the Euro stuff is in grams.

MelodySmith511

Recipes that you enter yourself can be incorrect also. I entered all ingredients for a pudding & MFP has each serving way off on carbs, showing each at 12 carbs instead of 30. I didn't realize how off it was, or I would have eaten much less, less often! Be careful & verify it calculates correctly.