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Suggestion: Add Magnesium and Zinc to the nutrients list

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jcrmatos
jcrmatos Posts: 2 Member
in Feature Suggestions and Ideas
Add Magnesium and Zinc to the nutrients list.
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  • balls_told_me_so
    balls_told_me_so Posts: 2 Member
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    Yes please!!!!!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,437 Member
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    Keep in mind that the database is crowd-sourced, i.e., entered by average MFP users like you and me. Some are not meticulous when they do that, and even those who are meticulous pretty much only have information on the product label to go by.

    In the US at least, magnesium and zinc are not required to be listed on food labels, and it's rare for food companies to list items that are optional.

    The implication is that if MFP were to add magnesium and zinc to the fields in the database, the data in those fields would almost always be empty/wrong. You still wouldn't get accurate totals in your diary because of that.

    In general, because of all scenario, MFP seems to have the philosophy of having database fields only for things that are required or common on food labels.

    I care about nutrition, so what I've done about that is to occasionally spot check some of my typical eating days against other more complete sources (such as the USDA FoodData Central database at https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/), and see how I'm doing with micros. If there's something of concern, I'll look up foods high in that nutrient (via web search), and work some of those foods into my regular eating patterns.

    I know that's not the answer you're ideally looking for, but it's a sort of secondary approach that can work OK.

    As a generality, I find that if I make it a point to eat really major amounts of varied, colorful veggies and fruits every day, most of the micronutrients fall into line pretty nicely without micromanaging them. (Personally, I shoot for 800 grams or more of veggies/fruits every day, usually come close at least, often exceed.)

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