How do you deal with conflicting nutrition Database information?

MKEgal

In your case, go with the one labelled Ruby Tuesday, or find the one which most closely matches what's given on their website for nutrition info.

Otherwise, I scan the barcode on things when I can, or search using as specific of terms as possible: brand name, flavor, etc.
Is the food baked or poached or steamed? Use that term in your search.
If it's a plain food (grown or an animal product) throw in "USDA".
Are you eating a small egg or a jumbo egg?

When everything else fails, and you have to choose among several options given in the database, choose the most conservative one. IOW, which will use up the most calories from your bank for the day?

PhilHarrison1

Restaurants? Always use their data. Check their nutritional profiles against what is on here. If it deviates too far, I either add my own food or I now add quick calories and nutrition since I joined premium. For example, if I am going to subway, I go to their site and use the "build your own" to find out what it is going to cost me calorie wise. Then I log it. I made a list and that's what I get. It's also the nutrition I log. In this case, premium made my life a lot easier.

Same for what I am cooking. I never accept what is in this database as the final word. I always cross check with other databases unless I have a nutrition label. Then I use the label.

lynn_glenmont

brentfostwood904 wrote: »

cerise_noir wrote: »

brentfostwood904 wrote: »

I found out for example that a 1.2kg chicken yeilds about 600g of meat once cooked and the bones removed. Now some people would just put down 1.2kg chicken meat and their diary would be really incorrect. Scales are very useful.

No, they wouldn't. There are entries for both raw and cooked. The nutrition does not change that much during cooking unless (not counting cooking oils and add ins, they get added in separately) it is something very fatty like bacon.

the nutrition changes drastically during cooking, due to the weight changing significantly. For example meat could weigh about 70% of its raw weight, once it's been cooked, due to moisture loss. So if someone takes a 500g steak, cooks it, then puts into my fitness pal "500g roast steak" actually they have only eaten a 350g roast steak as this is its new weight once cooked.

The issue of using the raw weight is obvious, it's a very common mistake people make with meat. You have to weigh your meat after youve cooked it to get the new value. Now once you have the cooked weight, the issue of using the raw value (e.g. saying ok 350g raw meat) is that how much fat was lost out of the meat, how did the nutritional value change during cooking? But the issue of using something like "350g roast steak" is also what doest that include? Does it include the juices or not? How well cooked was this steak compared to yours and what difference did that make? So the raw values are more reliable, but you have to also account for what was lost. It's better to cross reference different values to come up with the most likely value for your food.

I regularly cook whole chickens and there is a lot of juice which is mostly fat, which is on the bottom of the tray. I dont know if these examples of roast chicken in myfitness pal includes this or not. I also couldnt find one example of a roast chicken on myfitness pal which was completely correct so I had to make my own entry after researching meat yeilds after cooking, and weighing food myself to find out exactly how much flesh is produced after cooking and bones removed. Also I had to split this into two separate foods, one for the chicken with no skin and one for the skin separately, to make sure everything was properly accounted for. I found out that most of the entries in myfitness pal for "whole roast chicken" were way way off. What I've got probably still isnt 100% but its the most accurate I can do. It's a lot better than using any of the other options I found on the site. There are a lot of issues like this and I think it's a lot better to make your own food entries to use yourself rather than trust other people to get it right.

Use MFP database entries that reflect the USDA database. Choose the entry that matches how you weighed your food (cooked or raw). Don't make this any more complicated than it has to be.

05011, Chicken, broilers or fryers, meat only, raw


05013, Chicken, broilers or fryers, meat only, roasted

There are other entries for other methods of cooking, for meat and skin both, etc.

fanosatchmo

Thank you all!
Since the question was based around going to a restaurant, I will leave the raw vs cooked debate for now. I think my solution is going to be:

1. Check the Nutrition Database
2. Double-check with USDA Database
3. Add a Restaurant Tax for the unknowns
4. Relax and carry on

I think with these four steps, I will be golden. Thank y'all again.