creating a barcode for a food or meal

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drtomlittle
drtomlittle Posts: 1 Member
edited December 2024 in Food and Nutrition
Hi There
I recently read a book where you could scan barcodes and it would find the meal and log the nutrients on MFP. I am trying to do the same for food or meals I'm creating on MFP. I've set access setting to 'public' but I can't find any barcode/UPC codes. Also, how would I export them once I am able to locate them? Any help much appreciated

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  • bpetrosky
    bpetrosky Posts: 3,911 Member
    The linkages between product barcodes and MFP database entries are usually created when a user scans a barcode that hasn't been linked before. They can then search for a database entry to find a match, which would then allow others to find the same entry by barcode.

    UPC barcodes used in the US and much of the world are a 12 digit number, with part of the number encoding a producer ID, which is assigned by GS1. The rest of the number is assigned to products made or branded by the producer. It's probable the author of your book obtained a producer ID, or coopted one that's unassigned or used by a non-food manufacturer. That way they could scan the 'new' codes and match them to their custom entries.

    It would be unadvisable for many people to do this sorry if thing however, since they could be using codes that might be assigned in the future to real products.

    MFP could create a 'custom' barcode feature that used the scanner to read non-UPC codes (probably by adding or subtracting digits to keep it unique from the commercial entries), but you would have to talk to MFP support about that idea.
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