Appeal: Please use serving size as grams

Dear fellow MFPers,

I would like to appeal to you regarding the food database. Many people use serving sizes that are determined by the packaging (i.e. one piece, one box, half a mug, etc). This is very inaccurate, as the actual sizes vary.

I just put a pizza in the oven and weighted it at 374g. In the database, the only options (and there are 5 duplicates) are "1 pizza" and "1/2 pizza". The packaging says 768kcal per pizza, but the REAL amount is different. My weighted pizza has in fact 808 calories. The difference of 40kcal is huge, considering just how many inaccurate items there are in a daily diary. This stuff adds up! My fish fillets from last week ranged up to 20g plus or minus, altering the amount of calories quite a bit.

Please refer to the 100g measurement on the packaging, or whatever else is given (20g etc). ALSO, if something says "serving size" please look how much grams that actually refers to!

Yes I am aware I can add my own food, but all I do is clutter the database with a duplicate, just add a new measurement. I think MFP should make it easier to add different serving sizes (so that you can select both 1g or "1 pizza" from the drop down) but until then we as members have to keep it accurate for our own sake. :flowerforyou:

Replies

Camera_BagintheUK

Hey, folks, take another look at the request. NOBODY'S SAYING "GET RID OF CUPS"-- just "put it in grams like the civilized world uses".

I'm American, but we're the only major country in the world that still uses an antiquated measuring system. And to think we used to laugh at the English for their pre-reform currency, with 12d (pence) to the shilling and 20s to £1 (pound).

You might be American, but I'll still give you a big sloppy kiss for that :smooched:

Camera_BagintheUK

And finally - just found this which I posted in another thread - just for laffs!

Personally I measure my rice and beans in heqats, oil and milk in sháo, meat and fish in grams and kilos, myself in stones, pounds and ounces, and everything else in talents apart from beer, which being British, I measure in pints.

:laugh:

RhonndaJ

~finds the contents of this thread a fascinating revelation, and slowly and carefully backs away from it~

LAW_714

Also, please note, 'half a cup' of oats... Depending how you fill your measuring cup can be anywhere from 40-60g.
And please tell me what a cup of broccoli is. Do you count the air between the broccoli pieces?

You don't count the air. You know that your broccoli is in fact less than a true 'cup' and live with that knowlege. Life has some uncertainty to it.

What I'd like to know more about are the people who must carry scales around in their pockets such that they can weigh everything that they eat. At home or when packing lunch at home, sure. But how do you measure precise weights when out and away from a convenient scale? If it's guessing what looks like it might be a gram, how is guessing what constitutes a gram superior than guessing the volume of an Imperial cup measurement? Both have a margin of error based on the fact that we're just eyeing the volume.

(I'm unsure how there could be a vast difference in oats, however. Unless we're talking dry versus cooked. I wouldn't think air would be a particularly big factor when discussing rolled oats. Some, sure, but not huge).

histora

No. Just, no.

I don't scale my food. Sorry, but that brings back way too many bad memories of being anal-retentive about eating to the point of just not eating. 1 pizza from a box is one freaking from a box, and 40 cals is NOT that much. I usually leave a 100-200 cals in my limit for estimation issues.

You do what you need to do, but a cup is a cup, a tsp is a tsp, and I have lost weight while not fretting about that extra 20 grams in my pizza.

Just please, please, PLEASE, do not convert this app and site to grams and mL. Make it a dual, sure, but for the rest of us who don't have the money or time to constantly measure our food to the gram, don't.

Besides, everyone knows you don't REALLY know how much went in if you don't measure what came out.

madworld1

I am on the opposite spectrum as you. I don't weigh out my food on a gram scale (sanity reasons for this). So if all the foods in the database were listed only by grams I wouldn't be able to calculate. I have to accept that different people prefer things different ways.
I think restricting folks who are trying to do a good thing for themselves because it doesn't fit how you want to do that good thing for yourself is not the right answer.

Pip

This. :flowerforyou:

LAW_714

the real isnt that people arent using grams, its that they are using liquid measurements (cups) to weight dry foods. If people learned how to actually measure things with the right tools all of this would be a moot point. You dont measure weight with a mesaure tape and you dont measure electrical resistance with dial calipers. use the right tools to measure and all will be fine.

Then you have to define 'what is the correct tool' because it will be based on what the heck you're using it for.

If you want to have some sort of precise weight for the purpose of figuring out calories that's fine (with the understanding that just as someone above listed, overall weight may also not be entirely accurate if there are multiple ingredients involed. IOW, pizza may weigh 200 grams, but whether it's 100 grams of green peppers or 100 grams of cheese (or 60/40 or 70/30) will make a difference. Unless you're deconstructing your pizza to weigh each and every item on it, you're still talking margin of error).

If on the other hand you are cooking something using a U.S. cookbook, a cup may well be the correct tool because you're following instructions that were created using that method. The ingredients aren't listed in grams and someone may not want to spend a half hour doing math while cooking dinner since it's wholly unecessary for what they're doing.

Besides, it's not like there aren't other differences as well. I would guess that the majority of American's also don't enter 'eggplant' as 'aubergine' or 'red bell pepper' as 'capsicum.' We may share a common language but there are different cultures.

At any rate, there is always going to be a margin of error when trying to figure out the calorie load of what you're eating. In fact, calorie itself is a bit of a fudge since a calorie is based on measuring the amount of energy it takes to raise a kg of water by 1 degree Celsius. The way that cells metabolise energy has to do with ATP. So a calorie as it relates to metabolic processes aren't the 'best' measure. They are the most conveniently used one.

Beyond that, this being a wide world, there are going to be differences in what people default to in the way in which they choose to estimate their foods. That's life.

MFP is 'free' and allows you to enter you own measurements. If you're disatisfied with what pops up when you search for something, it's your choice whether or not to use what you find in the system or enter your own. Don't complain if someone else defaults to a different process than you. You're just as capable of entering the data to your own preference as they are to theirs.

MobileLyn

Sweet mercy I JUST came here to ask the same. If not grams, ounces, or if not ounces, pounds. In an ideal world we can all enter our personal preference in our individual settings & it would calculate for us but I'd settle for a note in the main description so I don't have to click 5 different possibilities so see if one is entered as pounds/ounces/grams. The TBSP/TSP measurements make me especially nuts LOL. That's what got me to this post. Jif Natural Peanut butter is listed as TBSP or TSP. Then I have find a conversion website and it never equals an even number. Just something like 1.3333333333333...ARGH!

I'm not sure where you live but here in the U.S. a lot of food items are not given a gram serving size. Instead it could be in ounces, cups, etc. And I think you're being awfully anal weighing prepackaged foods.

Disagree. Everything I have encountered, in a US grocery, that has a label, has grams listed right next to the serving size. Also disagree about being "anal" (name calling? Nice!) for weighing prepackaged foods. I dont need 2 TBSP of peanut butter. That's 190 calories! I only want a smaller amount- of which I will measure. Do you always eat a full service size on a package? What if there are 5 crackers & you only want 3? How do you figure that out? Guess? Not very accurate.

madworld1

Sweet mercy I JUST came here to ask the same. If not grams, ounces, or if not ounces, pounds. In an ideal world we can all enter our personal preference in our individual settings & it would calculate for us but I'd settle for a note in the main description so I don't have to click 5 different possibilities so see if one is entered as pounds/ounces/grams. The TBSP/TSP measurements make me especially nuts LOL. That's what got me to this post. Jif Natural Peanut butter is listed as TBSP or TSP. Then I have find a conversion website and it never equals an even number. Just something like 1.3333333333333...ARGH!

I'm not sure where you live but here in the U.S. a lot of food items are not given a gram serving size. Instead it could be in ounces, cups, etc. And I think you're being awfully anal weighing prepackaged foods.

Disagree. Everything I have encountered, in a US grocery, that has a label, has grams listed right next to the serving size. Also disagree about being "anal" (name calling? Nice!) for weighing prepackaged foods. I dont need 2 TBSP of peanut butter. That's 190 calories! I only want a smaller amount- of which I will measure. Do you always eat a full service size on a package? What if there are 5 crackers & you only want 3? How do you figure that out? Guess? Not very accurate.

I purposefully overestimate in cases such as this. For instance, there are 95 cals in 1 TBSP of pb. If there are 3 tsp in 1 tbsp, then divide 95 by 3 and you get 31.6666666667. So, one tsp of pb has approximately 32 calories (probably give or take a few).

Same with the cracker scenario. If 5 crackers have 70 calories, then divide 70/5 and you get 14 calories/cracker. Multiply 14 X 3 and you get 42 cals for 3 crackers. Then, create your own entry and save it for future use.

Bry_Fitness70

Insisting on 'cups' is a very narrow minded American trait.

Lol, I think the same thing every time someone from the UK inexplicably describes their weight in stones - how narrow minded that person must be!

(Not really, I don't care, but those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones - or cups or grams, for that matter)

LAW_714

The TBSP/TSP measurements make me especially nuts LOL. That's what got me to this post. Jif Natural Peanut butter is listed as TBSP or TSP. Then I have find a conversion website and it never equals an even number. Just something like 1.3333333333333...ARGH!

What does it even matter?

The fraction always exists. Is it simply reassuring when the manufacturer ignores the fraction and rounds the number off for you? You can ignore the fraction and round the number too.

I mean, just pulling out the jar of Smuckers peanut butter in my cabinet, the nutrition label states it as:

Serving size: 2Tbsp (32g) = 210 cal

Now, in reality is 2Tbs exactly 32grams? There are no possible fractions? ...or did Smuckers just ignore the .333333333? I'm guessing that there's some rounding going on somewhere, either with the grams or with the tablespoon but honestly, what does it even matter? A fractional difference that small should not be crucial to someone's daily caloric intake. There has to be some wiggle room if for no other reason than to account for a human margin or error.

(And I don't understand how there can be vast variations in what constitutes a measured tbs of peanut butter. Peanut butter is a fairly dense food. If you measure it properly in a measuring spoon (meaning you fill it full then remove the excess above the top rim of the the measuring spoon), you're going to come out to relatively close to the same weight every time. There isn't a lot of room for variance and what little there is would seem to be a negligible. No one's total caloric intake should be so close to the bar that the difference between weight in a measured tbs of peanut butter this time and the weight of measured tbs of peanut butter the next time should actually matter. It should roughtly be around 32 grams... give or take a fraction.

It's also why I'm confused by all the cries of "but a tablespoon is a volume not a weight" So? They measured a tablespoon of peanut butter and weighed it. So 2 MEASURED tablespoons = 210 calories = 32 grams (give or take a fraction somewhere on side of the conversion or the other) It should still be really darn close whether you're going by the measured volume listed on the jar or by the weight listed. These listed values should be relatively close.

And if the question is whether someone is eyeballing a 'tablespoon,' the equivalent would not be to a measured weight but to someone eyeballing an approximate gram of food, in which case the margin of error comes with guessing not the unit of measure. Because there's guessing, there's a margin of error either way. A guess is a guess whether one is guessing tablespoons or grams.

I can't help but think, people have existed for thousands of years without weighing every morsel that they eat. Yes, it's important when counting calories to keep track of the amount, but the useful part of weighing or counting the volume is learning proper serving sizes of food. But anyone thinking they're going to be accurate to three decimals places is worrying themselves beyond the point of necessity.

(And if the issue is that someone else took the time and effort to enter the information based on the way that they personally use it, and the next person is bothered because that first person used a different unit of measure than their own preference. Well, you don't have to use it. You are equally as entitled as the first to expend your time and your effort to look up the information and enter it into the data base yourself.)

I dont need 2 TBSP of peanut butter. That's 190 calories! I only want a smaller amount- of which I will measure. Do you always eat a full service size on a package? What if there are 5 crackers & you only want 3? How do you figure that out?

Dare I say... math?

Birder150

Also, if you add your own food, and check off the spot that says something like "allow other members to use" just say No. Then you don't clutter the database and it's accurate for when you'd like to use it next time.

This is what I do.
I have an entire list of foods that are mine alone.
MINE, ALL MINE!!! :bigsmile:

I am on the side of gram measurements whenever possible.

Mr_Knight

Dare I say... math?

The point of services like MFP is to minimize math. The software is supposed to take care of the nitty gritty.

Put me in the grams/ounces camp.

Mr_Knight

I purposefully overestimate in cases such as this.

For folks who are active, overestimating intake can be as problematic as underestimating is for folks who have to mind every last calorie.

katorihanzo

I agree!!!! I mean, when I see 1 cup or half a cup, it drives me crazy! I don't know how big your cup is!
Thank you for bringing this up!

uh....a cup is a unit of measure. one cup = one cup.

exactly. a cup is a unit of measurement, not just a thing you drink out of. If someone is using "one cup" to measure, they mean 250 ml, or, in other words, one cup.

Mr_Knight

exactly. a cup is a unit of measurement, not just a thing you drink out of. If someone is using "one cup" to measure, they mean 250 ml, or, in other words, one cup.

A cup is 250ml in Australia. In the UK it is 300 ml. In the US it is 236ml.

Thanks for highlighting the issue so perfectly.

MobileLyn

As stated by another poster, I use this site because it's supposed to have the best Database. The best Database (IMO) doesn't require math, I prefer art and English.

& If I choose to count every single calorie, thats my choice because it has worked for me. Estimating, in my very personal experience, is a very slippery slope for me.

I was not aware of the ability to make entries "public". I will look into this option as it may solve my problem & I dont give a crap if someone else chooses to use cups or any other random measurement: if it works for them.

The biggest mistake we can all make, is to believe that our personal success/failure triggers are identical.

LAW_714

Sounds pretty presumptious to me. Someone somewhere went to the trouble of looking up a food and logging it into the database, then someone else whines that it's too much trouble to do elementary multiplication or division much less go to the bother of looking up the food item and logging it into the database themselves in the unit of measure that they prefer. Exactly what entitles poster 2 to think their time is more valuable than poster 1's? If poster 1's weights and measures are inadequate to your specifications nothing prevents poster 2 from making the effort themselves. It's a free app with a User generated data base. Your fellow poster is not being paid to generate content and their time and effort is no less valuable than your own. If it's too darn much trouble to multiply or divide a number that's been provided to you, I don't see where there's room to complain about someone else not going to the trouble of converting to a measuring system that they aren't using themselves AFTER they have gone to the trouble to look up and log a series macros about a food into the database in the system of measurement that they are using for themselves.

This is basically complaining about someone not putting in twice as much effort for the convenience of the person complaining that doing simple conversion for themselves is just too darn hard.

madworld1

I purposefully overestimate in cases such as this.

For folks who are active, overestimating intake can be as problematic as underestimating is for folks who have to mind every last calorie.

When I say "overestimate," I mean I overestimate by a couple of calories. If a food item calculates to 43.23424, then I will round it off to 43. A tiny overestimate won't do much harm. I could see this as a problem if I overestimated by much more than that, but that's not what I meant.

KristysLosing

No.

snazzyjazzy21

So...am I the only one who just keeps scrolling till they find the item they want that's logged using the scale they like? If I see a cup of carrots I just scroll down until I find carrots listed in grams?

madworld1

So...am I the only one who just keeps scrolling till they find the item they want that's logged using the scale they like? If I see a cup of carrots I just scroll down until I find carrots listed in grams?

No. No, you are not. But, apparently this and creating personal food items is too "time consuming" for some.

skeeter2584

For those of you wishing to convert between grams and ounces, 1 ounce is 28.35 grams. Also, 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces (236 mL) and there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram. I ALWAYS use a food scale, and it also drives me up a wall seeing a non-liquid item such as grapes, peanuts, etc. being measured in cups. I personally only use cups for liquids such as water and milk.

snazzyjazzy21

For those of you wishing to convert between grams and ounces, 1 ounce is 28.35 grams. Also, 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces (236 mL) and there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram. I ALWAYS use a food scale, and it also drives me up a wall seeing a non-liquid item such as grapes, peanuts, etc. being measured in cups. I personally only use cups for liquids such as water and milk.

Unless you come from NZ, where a cup is 250ml?

LAW_714

For those of you wishing to convert between grams and ounces, 1 ounce is 28.35 grams. Also, 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces (236 mL) and there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram. I ALWAYS use a food scale, and it also drives me up a wall seeing a non-liquid item such as grapes, peanuts, etc. being measured in cups. I personally only use cups for liquids such as water and milk.

Unless you come from NZ, where a cup is 250ml?

With WHOLE milk 14 ml difference is only 9 calories (rounded for the fraction averse. It's actually 9.2)

Do people actually believe that even if they are weighing everything that they eat (which is quite an accomplishment. Bravo if someone does this) that they are actually going to have a margin of error less than 9.2 calories in a day?

fitmelrideough

Haha carrots... that was always the one I had to scroll down for as well. Hated that so many were in ounces or cups
Grams are much easier to work with, I find.

jlapey

For those of you wishing to convert between grams and ounces, 1 ounce is 28.35 grams. Also, 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces (236 mL) and there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram. I ALWAYS use a food scale, and it also drives me up a wall seeing a non-liquid item such as grapes, peanuts, etc. being measured in cups. I personally only use cups for liquids such as water and milk.

Unless you come from NZ, where a cup is 250ml?

Just know before you start converting that there's a difference between a solid ounce weighed on a scale and a liquid ounce measured in a cup.

skeeter2584

I am indeed aware of the distinction between solid and liquid ounces. I nonetheless appreciate you giving me a heads-up, jlapey. Thanks and best wishes for a healthier life.

Terry903

Yes you are correct. 1 cup is 8oz. Don't you all have measuring cups at your house? The answer is printed there.....I say this with love!

sharonsissell

i actually like the cup , half cup etc. but i also like the grams. i think there should be all of the different options on the drop down list