Why is food so hard to track
mdhampton9382
Posts: 1 Member
I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
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Replies
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Using a MFP app on my phone I scan the UPS code to get a super close approximation. All nearly all foods are 'officially' measured in grams, but a lot of MFP entries have "cups" "teaspoons" etc. Volume measurements not mass if you want to get technical. I feel you here...
If it is foods that are packaged and no UPC code, go to the USDA master food database and look up the title of your food. If you use the same title to search MFP you'll usually find an entry that is good.
Last but not least..add it yourself.
It gets easier. (but can still be frustrating.)2 -
I find it easier to search the data base using "grams" as part of the search. Ex: avocado grams or boneless skinless chicken breast grams". Pick an entry that most closely resembles your product. I haven't found it difficult to find correct entries.4
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I don't find it very hard to track. You can always find an entry that has a measurement in some sort of weight. Even if you have to use one that is in US measurements (ounces), it's very easy to transfer between grams an ounces. Just google X grams to ounces. and it will show the correct number automatically in your search results. I find myself constantly switching between ounces and grams, and vice versa. I have even learned how many "cups" something is by weight so I can do the conversion. For instance, one cup of cooked rice is approximately 140 grams. So when I weigh cooked rice, I can easily convert it to cups.
In my opinion, the little bit of time it takes to do all this is a small price to pay for living a healthier and skinnier life.6 -
When I did track, I didn't find it particularly difficult to find the entries for grams. If you're searching for things like meat or vegetables, etc I would tag the search with "USDA"...those entries for the most part are in grams.
Also, most entries are crowd sourced so there are a lot of bad entries in the database.4 -
chris_in_cal wrote: »Using a MFP app on my phone I scan the UPS code to get a super close approximation. All nearly all foods are 'officially' measured in grams, but a lot of MFP entries have "cups" "teaspoons" etc. Volume measurements not mass if you want to get technical. I feel you here...
If it is foods that are packaged and no UPC code, go to the USDA master food database and look up the title of your food. If you use the same title to search MFP you'll usually find an entry that is good.
Last but not least..add it yourself.
It gets easier. (but can still be frustrating.)
Scanning UPC codes gives you the same user-entered data as searching with a text string, and in no way guarantees greater accuracy. But good advice on searching using the USDA text strings.3 -
I do agree that often when I scan a UPC, the data matches the product package, but isn't in grams. So then I *sigh* search it instead. Scanning the UPC would be more convenient if I could scan then enter the number of grams for the amount I'm eating. I'm in the US; not sure if this differs across the board.0
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mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Are you using the free or the premium version?
How long have you been logging?0 -
If you have the package, and it says a serving size is, for example, 1/2 cup (114 grams) (which I think is roughly typical for premium ice cream), and you find a database entry that lists the serving as 1/2 cup, but all the nutrient info matches the label, and you've weighed out, say, 171 g for your portion, just log 1.5 servings (171/114). It doesn't matter that the person who created the database entry used the volume measurement, if the package label gives you the mass equivalent.6
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mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Most packaged items in the US have gram information, and for everything else I'd use the USDA entries for whole foods, which are all in grams (that they have lots of size options, including 100 g, is one of the signs that it's a USDA entry).
If working from a package search to find an entry with matching information. If 1 serving = 48 g (or some such) you can just do the math -- if you have 65 g, then you had 1.35 servings.6 -
mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Are you using the free or the premium version?
How long have you been logging?
The free and premium version share the same cluttered, partially crowd-sourced database.8 -
Entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database include grams. I have the USDA database open in one tab and MFP in another.
Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries with sufficient upvotes and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database (no upvotes needed). To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)5 -
kshama2001 wrote: »mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Are you using the free or the premium version?
How long have you been logging?
The free and premium version share the same cluttered, partially crowd-sourced database.
Maybe that’s really why premium costs so much. There’s a secret premium-only database where if I scan the UPC code on my cookies, it doesn’t come up as pork chops?4 -
I’ve tracked all my food for 8 years and 3 days. Including terms like grams, raw, usda can help your search results yield better results.
However, there are roughly eleventy billion entries for every food. Some may not be for your country. Some may reflect outdated (or updated) nutrition info. Some may be entered by someone who is only tracking calories (and entered nothing else). Some may be just for fun-like the 1,000,000,000,000 ish calorie entry for buffet and booze in Vegas.
You will likely need to scroll through a few to find something correct. And I almost always have a cauliflower entry appear somewhere in the top 15 of whatever I’m searching for.
Once you have found a “good” entry-it’ll be in your recent/frequent foods and you don’t need to search again. So the pain is relatively short lived as many of us really do eat a lot of the same things over and over again.10 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Are you using the free or the premium version?
How long have you been logging?
The free and premium version share the same cluttered, partially crowd-sourced database.
Maybe that’s really why premium costs so much. There’s a secret premium-only database where if I scan the UPC code on my cookies, it doesn’t come up as pork chops?
They keep the good yams in that database
(Sorry, can't find a clip.)0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.
Yup, I find if I copy the USDA title and paste it into the MFP search it increases the chance of me finding the actual USDA entry.
The good thing about these is they usually have all sorts of different units: 1g, 100g, 1 ounce, 1 medium banana etc.
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mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
Most packaged items in the US have gram information, and for everything else I'd use the USDA entries for whole foods, which are all in grams (that they have lots of size options, including 100 g, is one of the signs that it's a USDA entry).
If working from a package search to find an entry with matching information. If 1 serving = 48 g (or some such) you can just do the math -- if you have 65 g, then you had 1.35 servings.
I just change it to one serving being 1 gram so no maths is required.3 -
mdhampton9382 wrote: »I track my food in grams, but few foods have any gram information. And don’t get me started on the first choice in the list a made for sugar, it was so far off of correct as to be silly.
All foods have gram information.0
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