Nutritional info provided by another member

marymoves
marymoves Posts: 20 Member
in Food and Nutrition
In my search results for foods, I noticed a huge number of items (sometimes all results in a search) are marked with an asterisk for "Nutritional information provided by another MyFitnessPal member". How reliable is this info? Does anyone ever check it for accuracy?

Replies

  • Papillon22
    Papillon22 Posts: 1,160 Member
    I've actually never seen that! I thought that all info was provided by members, anyway. As for trusting it, I don't. I'm one of those annoying people who will edit the information to make it correct.

    Edit: I just looked it up and it turns out it is there, but I had never paid attention to that!
  • glin23
    glin23 Posts: 460 Member
    I definitely check it for accuracy, as it can alter your numbers if it's not accurate, sometimes fairly drastically. One of my main reasons for going MFP was to log my food. If that's not accurate, then it sort of kills the point for me being here.
  • Akimajuktuq
    Akimajuktuq Posts: 3,037 Member
    There are many inaccuracies with entries by members, but I'm also glad that MFP does allow us to enter items that are not in the database. There are entries that are very obviously wrong. For instance there are some beef entries for an 8oz steak (even a ribeye!) at 150 calories. Not, no way, not ever. Also, a common mistake is that the calorie count of the macros don't add up to the total calories entered. It really mucks up the daily totals when the macros don't match the calories. When in doubt, look at a bunch of different entries and find the most plausible or search reputable online databases. If an entry looks too good to be true, it is.
  • marymoves
    marymoves Posts: 20 Member
    I thought MFP had a database that I could rely on, but maybe not so much - at least not without doing some homework. :ohwell:

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