Question regarding iron RDA %

173chessca

My husband is undergoing chemo so I need to track both his potassium and iron intake. The potassium setting is fine but I am confused about the iron setting which is showing as percentage of RDA and not mgs. My concern is that the 100 % RDA for adult males is 8mg but 18mg for adult females - so a big difference there. Does anyone know if the setting tracks RDA for male or female or ? Thank you.

janejellyroll

I believe it is determined by whether you set your account up as "male" or "female."

173chessca

I don't think it is determined by the account setting of male or female because when I input a specific food, Cream of Wheat, it shows as being 45% RDA for my account, which is set to female, and my husband's account, which is set to male. I wonder if it takes age into account as well. We are both over 50 and I think the RDA for women decreases after a certain age.

lemurcat2

Packaging has the % based on 18 mg. That's likely what it is.

173chessca

Thank you for checking the package, I didn't have one on hand.

So this means the 45% is actually close to 100% for his profile of male over age 50. Sigh.

I am using the free version of MFP. Does anyone know if the paid version allows this particular setting to be manually set to mgs as opposed to % RDA? Or if the RDA can be corrected to reflect the member's profile (male over age 50)?

I realize it seems simple enough to recalculate every entry but I've got what seems like a million little things to track for him and was hoping to make as many of them automatic as possible.

janejellyroll

173chessca wrote: »

Thank you for checking the package, I didn't have one on hand.

So this means the 45% is actually close to 100% for his profile of male over age 50. Sigh.

I am using the free version of MFP. Does anyone know if the paid version allows this particular setting to be manually set to mgs as opposed to % RDA? Or if the RDA can be corrected to reflect the member's profile (male over age 50)?

I realize it seems simple enough to recalculate every entry but I've got what seems like a million little things to track for him and was hoping to make as many of them automatic as possible.

I don't know if you can use the premium version to display mg instead of RDA, but you can adjust the % to RDA you want to have within your "Goals" even on free. So if you figure out what % of the RDA would actually be his goal, you can manually adjust that.

sarabushby

Be very careful to select accurate data entries when you are tracking such micronutrients as there’s a lot of very erroneous listings. Using one or two incorrect entries per day could really mess up the numbers and mean your husband is not getting what you think he is.
Just be cautious when you use a new entry and then you’ll be ok adding it from your recent or frequent food lists once you know it’s ok.

lynn_glenmont

janejellyroll wrote: »

I believe it is determined by whether you set your account up as "male" or "female."

I don't think so, since the database entries just use nutritional label info (assuming the user did it correctly). U.S. nutritional labels use 18 mg as 100%, so looking at that info, an adult man only needs about 45%.

lynn_glenmont

173chessca wrote: »

Thank you for checking the package, I didn't have one on hand.
for
So this means the 45% is actually close to 100% for his profile of male over age 50. Sigh.

I am using the free version of MFP. Does anyone know if the paid version allows this particular setting to be manually set to mgs as opposed to % RDA? Or if the RDA can be corrected to reflect the member's profile (male over age 50)?

I realize it seems simple enough to recalculate every entry but I've got what seems like a million little things to track for him and was hoping to make as many of them automatic as possible.

You can adjust your goal for iron to 45% (or whatever is appropriate for you) in the settings on the free version, just like you can adjust calorie goals and macro goals.