Entering Foods

anna2513
anna2513 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
How does everyone enter or track foods that don’t automatically populate, scan, etc.

Answers

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,548 Community Helper
    I type in the search box, pick an accurate entry and log it.

    If nothing at all comes up that's accurate, I enter the food from scratch in My Foods in MFP, then log that. Usually that happens with some new food that has a nutrition label, but if it's some truly exotic non-labeled thing, I'd look in the USDA FoodData Central Database (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/) .

    It's pretty rare that there isn't an accurate entry already in the database, and very, very rare that a food isn't in FoodDataCentral. If that happens, I'd have to fall back on what I could find via web search.

    That sounds like a lot when I type it out, but I'd underscore that most foods have accurate entries right there in the MFP database, and I've been using MFP long enough that most of the things I eat routinely have accurate versions in my recent/frequent foods on MFP so those come up first when I go to log the foods.

    I never use the barcode scanner. Too often, the data it brings up is missing or inaccurate, and I don't like messing around with my electronic device while I'm cooking anyway. The meal photo thing is ridiculous, way more effort.

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