Tracking Iron

laura_jgu

Hey,

I’ve downloaded the app today and am curious as to whether the iron percentages take into account the different recommended intake for male/female users?

(Am UK based. The NHS website says men over 18 need 8.7mg of iron and women aged 19-50 need 14.8mg)

Edited to add - I've searched "Iron" in discussions and can see the iron amounts are based off of the higher US amount. Would be useful if our profiles could adjust amounts based off of our countries/sex but think that would be a task and a half on the backend of the app!

AnnPT77

You can change your iron goal in the goals area, even in free MFP, I believe. You'd have to figure out what percent of the standard US daily value you want it to be, though.

One note: The food database is crowd-sourced. In other words, regular users create the entries. Some of them do so accurately according to food labels, some don't. Some food labels contain iron, some don't (or didn't at the time the person put the entry in the database), even if the food has iron.

If you want your iron numbers to be accurate, you'll want to verify the values in food database entries you use in your diary.

SuzySunshine99

The bigger issue is that the food database is user-entered, so many entries have incomplete or incorrect nutritional information.

This is especially true for micronutrients and vitamins. I would not have much faith in tracking iron numbers using this app unless you independently verify each of your food items.

kshama2001

I'm anemic. While I no longer try to meet my iron needs through food (I supplement and get infusions) I still look at iron values. More often than not, USER-entered iron values are wrong.

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. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Use the “SR Legacy” tab - 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.)

scarlett_k

I'm not convinced most of the database entries have accurate iron content, if they have it at all (it's an optional field). I just eat a varied balanced diet rich in iron where possible, take my ferrous fumarate (I have iron deficiency anemia without it, regardless of diet) and go off of my blood tests.