inaccurate nutrition info?

shaunjphoenix

hi all, i've been keeping my food diary on mfp for only a few days and i am mostly getting the hang of it - but - i am finding that you have to be very careful and double check the nutrition info on lots of things. of course there are the "checked" foods (which i ASSUME are accurate) but for so many others the specific product might be listed but the calories be out - this morning for example "jerseyland organics 5% yogurt"... i have it in my fridge, it's label says .5c is 100calories. mfp says 140 calories... or - there's another entry which says it's 100 calories, but then says it's got 31g carbs (which is true for the french vanilla - but not the plain!)... and i entered one, and it suddenly said 1 c had 14,0000 calories, which would be... amazing?? so - is there a way to "tag" things that are inaccurate so other people dont get caught by them? are there "admins" for the nutrition info? i know they cant verify everything but if a person, such as myself, "tagged" something inaccurate then they could look into it/ remove it?

cmriverside

There are literally tens of millions of food entries. No, there is no way to tag them. They were entered by someone for whom the numbers were correct at that time.

Even within same products/same manufacturers the nutrition info on the labels does change over time. In the U.S. the numbers can be "off" legally by 20%.

I'm saying this so you will know to vet each item you use always. If it's something you'll use on a regular basis, vet it before you use it, then it will be in your "Recents" list and easy to find next time.

You can also enter new foods or edit existing ones (if they aren't green-checked) and then once you've done that they will appear in your MY FOODS list forever with those stats.

That's the joy of this site, a private self-created food database just for you, personally.

shaunjphoenix

how do i edit foods' info @cmriverside?

Danp

I agree, the ability to tag obviously inaccurate entries for removal would be handy but as mentioned there are tens of thousands of entries and more being added every day by the user base so logistically it's probably not feasible. It would be good however to be able to tag entries on an individual basis so that they are 'ignored' and excluded from that users searches.

On the flip side I've found that the range of foods I eat is pretty limited and after a bit of up front effort when I first started to find proper entries that with the rare exception everything I eat is generally something I've eaten before and will therefore be in my recent foods list.

grimendale

If you're using the scanner function on the app, there is a way to mark that the info it pulls isn't accurate and submit corrected info (as well as making sure your data defaults to your new entry). I've done it a few times with foods who have updated their labels.

tinkerbellang83

On the web version when you click on the nutrition information you can click yes or no to accurate nutrition info and you can see how many people have confirmed it's accurate and what date it was last confirmed. Still room for error, but it's a good place to start if you don't have the packaging handy for something.

cmriverside

shaunjphoenix wrote: »

how do i edit foods' info @cmriverside?

To edit existing food database items (web version) :

In FOOD, click "Add food" then type your food into the search box. When you choose from the list that comes up, a box will appear where you can then click, "Nutrition Info."

It will then ask, "Is this data accurate: Yes / No / I don't know

Click "No"

It will then ask, "Is this data accurate? To correct the information for this food, click here" (Edit)

Click that Edit button and make your changes and save. Then it's in your MY FOODS

Ellevated

shaunjphoenix wrote: »

hi all, i've been keeping my food diary on mfp for only a few days and i am mostly getting the hang of it - but - i am finding that you have to be very careful and double check the nutrition info on lots of things. of course there are the "checked" foods (which i ASSUME are accurate) but for so many others the specific product might be listed but the calories be out - this morning for example "jerseyland organics 5% yogurt"... i have it in my fridge, it's label says .5c is 100calories. mfp says 140 calories... or - there's another entry which says it's 100 calories, but then says it's got 31g carbs (which is true for the french vanilla - but not the plain!)... and i entered one, and it suddenly said 1 c had 14,0000 calories, which would be... amazing?? so - is there a way to "tag" things that are inaccurate so other people dont get caught by them? are there "admins" for the nutrition info? i know they cant verify everything but if a person, such as myself, "tagged" something inaccurate then they could look into it/ remove it?

On the app (at least the Android version) when you click on the food with the option to add it to your diary, if you scroll down you have the option to 'report food.'

Click on that and you also have the option to say what's wrong with the listing (eg. incorrect brand or wrong nutritional info). If the nutritional info needs correcting, you will have the option to submit corrections yourself, but make sure you check the box at the top of the form (above the nutritional info) to save the corrected version to your diary when you submit it. Otherwise you'll have to wait until they review it to use the corrected version.

A slightly outside-the-box approach would be simply to add the new version to the database. (Which can sometimes be the only feasible option if the entry that needs correcting has the wrong serving size so you have to do extra maths: You don't have the option to correct those on the android app.)