inaccurate calories

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luvluv1234
luvluv1234 Posts: 79 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Does anyone else find lots of foods on here with much lower calories than they should be? For example, I had homemade bbq pork ribs and for a half rack of ribs, most of the entries say they are about 330 calories. But, for a half rack of ribs at Applebees, it is 550 calories and they only give you six ribs with barely any meat on them.

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  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    That's what happens when you have a database where anyone can enter things. After a bit you'll get better at searching and eliminating the junk entries.
  • luvluv1234
    luvluv1234 Posts: 79 Member
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    Very helpful! Thanks, Kimmy72!
  • batgirl_273
    batgirl_273 Posts: 70 Member
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    yes, and the exercise calories tend to be way off in my experience. I do my best to search the data base for the exact brand or similar before selecting. It's hard to count calories when you eat out or make food from scratch because the ingredients can differ so greatly.
  • allyphoe
    allyphoe Posts: 618 Member
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    I log 150 calories per rib for St Louis cut pork ribs, plus any sauce.
  • laurenebargar
    laurenebargar Posts: 3,081 Member
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    Yeah I was logging my chicken under someones entry of "grilled chicken" that was wrong for about three weeks. I always over estimated if I didnt have my food scale so it didnt seem to set me back too far. However I will now only be using the usda entries for meat from now on.
  • caryll4
    caryll4 Posts: 21 Member
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    Yes I had pancakes and sausage from Mac Donald's this morning and on their board said 720 on here was much less so what do we do
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    Pork ribs, especially as they are served with various forms of candy coating, will have wildly varying calorie values from the various providers. I'd guess that some calorie value that covers the (cooked ribs-bones) could be logged as '10204, Pork, fresh, loin, country-style ribs, separable lean and fat, raw', assuming that the fat would have been rendered away and those calories replaced by the sugary sauce.
  • Jriggs46615
    Jriggs46615 Posts: 50 Member
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    caryll4 wrote: »
    Yes I had pancakes and sausage from Mac Donald's this morning and on their board said 720 on here was much less so what do we do

    You can either adjust the current entry to the correct numbers or create your own food item, using the McDonald's nutrition listing. I would do the latter and just keep it on my entries, not adding it to the database. It's already overrun with incorrect entries.
  • SolotoCEO
    SolotoCEO Posts: 293 Member
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    The MFP database is very inaccurate on many entries - even those that have the green check. I use the calories on the package (even these can be off by up to 20%) or use the calories on the livestrong.com site (which I find to be much more accurate although not perfect). It's frustrating since you can be so careful with the calorie count and still be way over due to the inaccurate entries.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,485 Member
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    Check foods against the USDA data base, or search 'ribs, raw, USDA' do this for all non prepackaged and non restaurant foods.
    If the sauce you use is homemade build a recipe for it, if a bottled sauce use the package info, or scan with a smart phone.

    Always use a digital scale and weigh your food in grams.

    Once you have the correct entries in your data base logging will be easier.

    Cheers, h.

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