people changing calories - my meals messed up

yirara

The My meals option in MFP is also a kind of cookbook for me. Last week I cooked Spagball using this old recipe. Adding it I found that a portion for two came in at 2760kcal. Odd.. then I noticed that the calories for several entries was completely off!

30ml olive oil - 476kcal
250g. Spaghetti - 875kcal
tomato concentrate - nearly 300kcal

Ugh.. why do people do that?

By the look of it I can't change the ingredients of this meal but only delete it and assemble again.

lynn_glenmont

Are you that the problem is not just that you are logging "a portion for two"? Depending on how the serving size is recorded, it's not always easy from looking at the entry to tell what you're logging (e.g., if the entry serving size is recorded as 2.5 cups (250 g), and you double it, only the cups will show up in your log as doubled, not the grams, because the software only understands to double the first number in the serving size -- the 2.5 for cups -- I hope that makes sense).

Anyway, if there are other ingredients in this meal that you don't want to change, just log the meal, edit only the ingredients you do want to change -- i.e., delete and replace -- and then save the meal again the way you would if you were creating a new meal, but when it asks you to name the meal, click on "replace existing meal" and select the name of the meal you want to replace.

yirara

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

Are you that the problem is not just that you are logging "a portion for two"? Depending on how the serving size is recorded, it's not always easy from looking at the entry to tell what you're logging (e.g., if the entry serving size is recorded as 2.5 cups (250 g), and you double it, only the cups will show up in your log as doubled, not the grams, because the software only understands to double the first number in the serving size -- the 2.5 for cups -- I hope that makes sense).

Anyway, if there are other ingredients in this meal that you don't want to change, just log the meal, edit only the ingredients you do want to change -- i.e., delete and replace -- and then save the meal again the way you would if you were creating a new meal, but when it asks you to name the meal, click on "replace existing meal" and select the name of the meal you want to replace.

No, the right amounts are still in these meals. The calories are off because people must have changed them. I hold quite a few recipes in My Meals with the correct amounts of ingredients for two people. And even if it wasn't, the amount of calories make no sense at all! I usually cooked those meals according to those recipes, and often adjusted amounts a bit, like instead of using 100gr. of carrot I'd use 98 or so. Then I'd log by serving: ex ate 3/5, I ate 2/5. That worked for weight loss for me.

btw, I just found another meal that includes 80gr red onion, at 879kcal!

CyberTone

When a user edits a food item in the public Food Database, the editing does not affect the entries already saved in individual user's Food Diary, or the remembered My Meals that have been previously saved.

If editing public Food Database entries changed saved food items in tens of thousands of database records already saved in hundreds of thousands of user's Diaries and My Meals, the entire relational database structure would grind to a halt. It does not work that way.

yirara

CyberTone wrote: »

When a user edits a food item in the public Food Database, the editing does not affect the entries already saved in individual user's Food Diary, or the remembered My Meals that have been previously saved.

If editing public Food Database entries changed saved food items in tens of thousands of database records already saved in hundreds of thousands of user's Diaries and My Meals, the entire relational database structure would grind to a halt. It does not work that way.

I would think My Meals only stores 'links' to the different database entries instead of the whole nutritional value for all the food items used. I'll edit an entry and see what happens in My Meals (yes, I put an incorrect one back to USDA)

CyberTone

yirara wrote: »

CyberTone wrote: »

When a user edits a food item in the public Food Database, the editing does not affect the entries already saved in individual user's Food Diary, or the remembered My Meals that have been previously saved.

If editing public Food Database entries changed saved food items in tens of thousands of database records already saved in hundreds of thousands of user's Diaries and My Meals, the entire relational database structure would grind to a halt. It does not work that way.

I would think My Meals only stores 'links' to the different database entries instead of the whole nutritional value for all the food items used. I'll edit an entry and see what happens in My Meals (yes, I put an incorrect one back to USDA)

The records are actually stored in your database tables, they are not links. The most likely thing is that the food items (records) that were stored in there were already corrupted by system glitches. The MFP created or edited items, such as the olive oil have known incorrect information for some of the serving size choices. "Bananas, raw" is another MFP edited item that has known inconsistencies. It is really the MFP database admins who are at fault for not verifying all information for all serving size choices within "verified" food items that have multiple choices for serving sizes.

yirara

Yep, you seem to be correct. Odd, as these entries are from when I was losing weight. It seems unlikely I ate a dinner of 1200kcal as my normal dinners are around 500-600. No idea to be honest.

yirara

Ah, just saw your other answer. Yes, it's probably something like this. I might go through my Meals, load whole dishes into my diary, replace those ingredients that are completely off and save as a new meal.

cmriverside

CyberTone wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

CyberTone wrote: »

When a user edits a food item in the public Food Database, the editing does not affect the entries already saved in individual user's Food Diary, or the remembered My Meals that have been previously saved.

If editing public Food Database entries changed saved food items in tens of thousands of database records already saved in hundreds of thousands of user's Diaries and My Meals, the entire relational database structure would grind to a halt. It does not work that way.

I would think My Meals only stores 'links' to the different database entries instead of the whole nutritional value for all the food items used. I'll edit an entry and see what happens in My Meals (yes, I put an incorrect one back to USDA)

The records are actually stored in your database tables, they are not links. The most likely thing is that the food items (records) that were stored in there were already corrupted by system glitches. The MFP created or edited items, such as the olive oil have known incorrect information for some of the serving size choices. "Bananas, raw" is another MFP edited item that has known inconsistencies. It is really the MFP database admins who are at fault for not verifying all information for all serving size choices within "verified" food items that have multiple choices for serving sizes.

Yeah, this. There are a lot of Admin-entered items that (for instance) I can't use 0.5 servings of 8 ounces, but I can use 4 ounces. I can't use 10 servings of 1 gram, but 0.10 servings of 100 grams works. There is a system-wide glitch with a lot of the entries.