Adding recipes manually and calories?

Dan_in_PA

I'm adding recipe manually. Myfitnesspal matches ingredients 100%, but it says one serving has sometimes twice the calories that the web site reports. Tried it with a bunch of different recipes from different websites with same results. Does anyone know which is correct?

AnnPT77

Unfortunately, you still need to check the auto-matched items carefully. It's always possible that the original web site is incorrect, but it's definitely true that the MFP auto-match will need tweaking at times.

Adjustments are possible in either web browser MFP or the phone/tablet app, but the specific mechanics differ. Not knowing which you use, I'll describe it in the web version, which I think is a little more inobvious in what to do. If you're using the app, and can't translate this to that environment, say so, and I'll take the time to do more screen grabs.

Here's the first few items from a random web recipe for lasagna. Obviously, the circled items matched are each wrong. (These are only a subset of examples of what can happen.)



In the next screen grab, I've already corrected the quantity on the first one, clicked "Edit Quantity" on the second but not changed it yet, and hovered my cursor to the right of the 3rd ingredient to show you the options that are hidden until you hover the cursor there. (The "Replace" link brings up a search box so you can find a better matching entry, or one with more correct calories/nutrients. I haven't show that here, but you can experiment.)



The phone/tablet app offers similar capabilities, but usually you're clicking on the item to change quantity or replace it via search, or deleting an item you don't like and adding others.

Once I vet the line items carefully in MFP, I figure I'm getting reasonable calorie/nutrient data. Generally, I have no idea how the recipe site derived their nutrition info, so I tend to trust it less than my carefully reviewed/edited MFP version. YMMV.

Best wishes!

Dan_in_PA

Thanks so much. I think that may have been the problem. Another thing I discovered is when you cook, maybe chicken in a sauce, maybe tomato, MFP adds all the sauce to the calorie count, but when you actually eat it most of the sauce is left in the pot after you remove your piece of chicken, so therefore should not be counted in calories per servings. Thanks again for your help.

COGypsy

That’s not a shortcoming of MFP. A software program has no way of knowing how much sauce you prefer to eat vs leave in the pan. Just weigh the remaining sauce and deduct it from the original weight of your serving.

Hobartlemagne

Ive had improved results from entering measurements in grams-only or ounces-only.
I avoid mentioning pounds or kilos.