Too Many Food Input Choices?
Options
wowisforstuds1238
Posts: 77 Member
Been on the app now for about a month or so and I’ve noticed increasing difficulty hitting my macros accurately day to day, because when you input a food item into your diary you can sometimes have 5 or 6 different results based on how the person who entered it must have made it. That poses a problem for someone looking for the right calorie/ macro count that fits their diet. Sure, you could break down every dish you eat manually, but should you really have to? Instead, maybe the app can change the way it does it’s diary choices by just having 3 of each item. 1 item that would be cooked healthy for those of us looking for clean eating, an option that would incorporate a “hybrid” version if you will for someone wanting to maintain weight and a dirty option for those who want to put on weight for bulking or just having that item or dish be their cheat meal. Just a suggestion, but would love to hear what you guys think whether you’re new to the App like me or been here awhile and also have the same problem choosing which version to add to your food journal. Or, if that’s a stupid idea also comment. Always good to get many peoples opinions on a subject.
0
Replies
-
I use the recipe builder pretty extensively, so I know how much of each ingredient went into what I made and how much I ate.
What you're proposing would be much less accurate than using the recipe builder or even just logging individual ingredients in your diary.7 -
Once again, new to the app. Didn’t know you could do that so that is something to consider. Will be a pain in the butt in the beginning, but will save time overall. Thank you.2
-
wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »Been on the app now for about a month or so and I’ve noticed increasing difficulty hitting my macros accurately day to day, because when you input a food item into your diary you can sometimes have 5 or 6 different results based on how the person who entered it must have made it. That poses a problem for someone looking for the right calorie/ macro count that fits their diet. Sure, you could break down every dish you eat manually, but should you really have to? Instead, maybe the app can change the way it does it’s diary choices by just having 3 of each item. 1 item that would be cooked healthy for those of us looking for clean eating, an option that would incorporate a “hybrid” version if you will for someone wanting to maintain weight and a dirty option for those who want to put on weight for bulking or just having that item or dish be their cheat meal. Just a suggestion, but would love to hear what you guys think whether you’re new to the App like me or been here awhile and also have the same problem choosing which version to add to your food journal. Or, if that’s a stupid idea also comment. Always good to get many peoples opinions on a subject.
You can't really do that with a "recipe"...or some generic thing like "New England Boiled Dinner". Calories are derived from individual ingredients...there is no way to be accurate with some generic entry like "New England Boiled Dinner" because recipe to recipe from different individual users is going to be highly variable. If you're looking for the "right" calorie amounts and macros, the only way to do that is to use the recipe builder for YOUR own recipe or to enter individual ingredients.
Entries are all crowd sourced, so I have no idea logistically how MFP could possibly identify a plethora of random users entries for their particular recipe as "clean", "hybrid", or "dirty"
The recipe builder is a great tool for compiling your own recipes so you don't have to do individual ingredients all the time in your diary. The only time I ever used any kind of generic entry like "spaghetti and meatballs" or New England Boiled Dinner" or some such thing is when I couldn't be bothered to enter everything separately, or if it was such an infrequent meal that I couldn't be bothered to build my own recipe...so I would just take my best shot in the dark...which is all generic entries like that are.5 -
Yeah! That makes total sense to use the recipe builder. Didn’t know the app offered that, but the answer to this problem,I think, is like you guys suggest. Rely on myself. save it and not have to wrap my mind around someone else’s cooking methods or habits.1
-
I get the recipe builder would be great for meals and complicated dishes sure, but shouldn’t fruit and vegetables, uncooked, be universal? Why are there even discrepancies for these items?0
-
wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »I get the recipe builder would be great for meals and complicated dishes sure, but shouldn’t fruit and vegetables, uncooked, be universal? Why are there even discrepancies for these items?
Because the vast majority of database entries have been created by your fellow users. Some of them are based on bad information or poor research, some of them are missing some macro/micronutrients because they weren't of interest to the person creating the entry. That's why most users concerned with accuracy double-check entries before using them. Once you've done the initial research, you can just keep using that same entry, so it's really only time-consuming at the beginning.6 -
I agree... Recipes are where it's at. And for anyone thinking "What a pain in the butt it's going to be to enter all this information..."... You would be surprised, once you get your A list meals entered over the coming couple of weeks, it literally becomes mere minutes every day to complete your entire diary. Then it's just the odd new thing you will have to put a bit more effort into.
Also there is a Remember meal function... This is handy for certain types of meals, my breakfast for instance that rarely changes. So if you made something you really like, you can Remember that meal, and easily pull it up again any time you want. Plus the meal function actually carries over every item in your meal versus a 1 liner for the recipe.
Here's another little tip...
You can make Meal with Roasted Chicken with every option of vegetable you choose to eat... eg.
5 oz Roasted chicken thigh with skin
1 cup steamed broccoli
1 cup steamed Cauliflower
3 oz steamed Asparagus
1 cup Steamed Brussel sprouts
10 g Butter
Then you can simply Pick the roasted chicken meal, and quickly X out the Vegetable your not eating that night. Or adjust the weight of the chicken etc.
Lots options really.5 -
OP, three features here will help you.
1) when you pick an item from the database, the app remembers it, and if you use the app to log (vs web interface), you won't have to go through the whole exercise of picking which database entry is most accurate for the brand/type you tend to eat.
2) meals - if you do have a "New England Boiled Dinner" or whatever on the reg, you can save it as a meal. Very handy for next time. By adding a meal, you do not have to hunt through the database again AND the ingredients will appear individually in your diary so you can you can tweak the quantities.
3) recipes - this is similar to meals with 2 differences: it is designed for several servings you make in one batch and it appears in your diary as a single line item. Hence, you cannot tweak quantities once you add it to your day, but you can edit the recipe to tweak qty/ingredients.
It is a PITA the first time you make something, but if you tend to rotate the same meals through a month, it will make it so logging takes literally seconds. Very quick and accurate.5 -
If the entries don’t have the confirmed check next to it.. I do some research into how much the food item calories should be. It only takes a few minutes ... I’ve built a lot of my own entries, recipes and meals. I scan a lot with the barcode feature and input manually.
Also - most fruits, vegetables, seafoods and meats have USDA entries that are reputable. I just weigh it.
My $.02 😉1 -
Safari_Gal_ wrote: »If the entries don’t have the confirmed check next to it.. I do some research into how much the food item calories should be. It only takes a few minutes ... I’ve built a lot of my own entries, recipes and meals. I scan a lot with the barcode feature and input manually.
Also - most fruits, vegetables, seafoods and meats have USDA entries that are reputable. I just weigh it.
My $.02 😉
Even the green-check ones can be wrong. Check them.
An item gets a green check in a couple of ways:
1. It was part of what MFP loaded from USDA when the app started. For simple foods (like "Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average") those are quite likely to be accurate, but some of the serving size options in them may be broken from a database conversion done years back 🙄. (You'd notice: Those produce crazy-giant calories, IME. The other quantities are accurate, though, and as a bonus these entries tend to have a bunch of different quantity options in the drop-down, such as for the tomatoes, 23 different size options from "1.0 cherry tomato" to "1.0 large whole (3" dia)" to 100g to 1.0lb(s) and way beyond.) After a while, one can recognize these by their silly-bureaucratic names (look at the tomato one again). *Entries with USDA in the name were user entered*.
2. Multiple users (I think the number is 5) clicked that the entry was correct. They could've been sloppy, they could've been looking at an old formulation of the food product or one from another country . . . no way to know, without checking. I grant that they have a slightly higher probability of being close.
Scanning and looking up manually pull from the same database, of course, with no more probability of being correct by using scanning.
Like Ahoy_m8 said, once you long them on the app, they're in your first-up food list, as long as you keep eating them semi-regularly. Even on the web, the "Recent" and "Frequent" tabs will have a lot of them, so you can use an entry you've checked.
This stuff, recipes and meals make things a bit time consuming at first, but learning to exploit them is an investment that pays off in time savings and accuracy later.
2 -
Safari_Gal_ wrote: »If the entries don’t have the confirmed check next to it.. I do some research into how much the food item calories should be. It only takes a few minutes ... I’ve built a lot of my own entries, recipes and meals. I scan a lot with the barcode feature and input manually.
Also - most fruits, vegetables, seafoods and meats have USDA entries that are reputable. I just weigh it.
My $.02 😉
At this point, the green check mark basically means that an entry is popular. I've encountered green-check entries that are wrong. Maybe they were right at one point, but the recipe or serving size (for a packaged food) has since changed. There is no one watching the database and keeping entries up-to-date, though, so you have to check. I agree with you that the USDA entries for whole foods are usually trustworthy, but any kind of packaged food I double-check against the label in my hand.2 -
Poobah1972 wrote: »I agree... Recipes are where it's at. And for anyone thinking "What a pain in the butt it's going to be to enter all this information..."... You would be surprised, once you get your A list meals entered over the coming couple of weeks, it literally becomes mere minutes every day to complete your entire diary. Then it's just the odd new thing you will have to put a bit more effort into.
Also there is a Remember meal function... This is handy for certain types of meals, my breakfast for instance that rarely changes. So if you made something you really like, you can Remember that meal, and easily pull it up again any time you want. Plus the meal function actually carries over every item in your meal versus a 1 liner for the recipe.
Here's another little tip...
You can make Meal with Roasted Chicken with every option of vegetable you choose to eat... eg.
5 oz Roasted chicken thigh with skin
1 cup steamed broccoli
1 cup steamed Cauliflower
3 oz steamed Asparagus
1 cup Steamed Brussel sprouts
10 g Butter
Then you can simply Pick the roasted chicken meal, and quickly X out the Vegetable your not eating that night. Or adjust the weight of the chicken etc.
Lots options really.
Yeah, I much prefer the saved Meal creation over the Recipe tool because when you re-use the Recipe it just enters the one line in your FOOD diary. I much prefer the multiple-ingredient/multiple-line in the food diary mode that I get with saved Meals. I can change things line by line.
2 -
1
-
Safari_Gal_ wrote: »
Meh, close enough for government work, as they say. 😉1 -
Safari_Gal_ wrote: »
Basically restating what Ann said with my standard response to this issue:
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
The USDA changed the platform for their database in 2019 and it is unfortunately a little more difficult to use. I uncheck everything but “SR Legacy” - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
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.)4 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »Been on the app now for about a month or so and I’ve noticed increasing difficulty hitting my macros accurately day to day, because when you input a food item into your diary you can sometimes have 5 or 6 different results based on how the person who entered it must have made it. That poses a problem for someone looking for the right calorie/ macro count that fits their diet. Sure, you could break down every dish you eat manually, but should you really have to? Instead, maybe the app can change the way it does it’s diary choices by just having 3 of each item. 1 item that would be cooked healthy for those of us looking for clean eating, an option that would incorporate a “hybrid” version if you will for someone wanting to maintain weight and a dirty option for those who want to put on weight for bulking or just having that item or dish be their cheat meal. Just a suggestion, but would love to hear what you guys think whether you’re new to the App like me or been here awhile and also have the same problem choosing which version to add to your food journal. Or, if that’s a stupid idea also comment. Always good to get many peoples opinions on a subject.
You can't really do that with a "recipe"...or some generic thing like "New England Boiled Dinner". Calories are derived from individual ingredients...there is no way to be accurate with some generic entry like "New England Boiled Dinner" because recipe to recipe from different individual users is going to be highly variable. If you're looking for the "right" calorie amounts and macros, the only way to do that is to use the recipe builder for YOUR own recipe or to enter individual ingredients.
Entries are all crowd sourced, so I have no idea logistically how MFP could possibly identify a plethora of random users entries for their particular recipe as "clean", "hybrid", or "dirty"
The recipe builder is a great tool for compiling your own recipes so you don't have to do individual ingredients all the time in your diary. The only time I ever used any kind of generic entry like "spaghetti and meatballs" or New England Boiled Dinner" or some such thing is when I couldn't be bothered to enter everything separately, or if it was such an infrequent meal that I couldn't be bothered to build my own recipe...so I would just take my best shot in the dark...which is all generic entries like that are.
Lol, I did use a "New England Boiled Dinner" on a previous St. Patrick's Day. I might use someone else's meal entry on holidays when I'm cooking for a crowd and can't manage logging. I went to try to find it to compare it to this year's precisely logged meal, but it must have happened 2017 or earlier as I have no entries for March 2017 due to MFP zapping the old data for members not on Premium.
Normally I do use the recipe builder or log individual items.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 390 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 922 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions