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Food Insights - A major problem with Alcohol data in Countries where Alcohol is ilegal

clematisa1
clematisa1 Posts: 13 Member
in Feature Suggestions and Ideas

I just received the Food Insights for this week and it has recorded 2 for Sips and Spirits - as I don't drink alcohol and I check all ingredients to ensure that there is NO alcohol , I can't figure where the 2 have come from. I am apalled as I am Alcohol Free and have been for 5 years! I understand others have had a similar problem recently. I think I will have to stop and delete my account as the app is obviously not correct and the information about Alcohol is particularly important. Especially for people in countries where NO ALCOHOL is acceptable or even legal. Eg. Saudi Arabia The data on Alcohol must be correct especially if police may require to check your phone and would see incorrect information for banned ilegal substances on Myfitnesspal.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,154 Member

    This is IMO a really bad problem: There is the potential for getting MFP users in legal difficulties in some countries. TBH, I wouldn't have thought about it as a person living in a country where alcohol is legal until the issue was brought up here, but . . . wow. Yikes.

    Maybe that section of the report could be excluded in countries where alcohol is illegal, but IMO excluding it everywhere would be preferable to getting people crosswise of the laws in some places just because the identification of alcoholic choices can't be accurately programmed. At minimum, making the entry clickable to show what diary item(s) counted as alcohol - inaccurately, in a case like this - would be a small help.

    I hope the MFP Customer Happiness Team member here in the Community can convince the developers that this is a serious problem! 

  • clematisa1
    clematisa1 Posts: 13 Member

    Thanks for your support AnnPT77 - as I said because I haven't touched Alcohol in over 5 years it immediately jumped out at me and thats why I checked all my food and drink as I was sure there was nothing I'd taken that had alcohol. The MFP admin really need to take this seriously! Other than the first e-mail they haven't been back in touch with me again - which really isn't good enough either.

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 7,070 Member

    I would add, as a general comment for the food insights: being a beta feature, if it is MFP's intention to improve this feature (and even in general) it would be helpful to be able to see the relevant diary entries for each category.

    • This allows people to give very specific feedback to improve the feature
    • It also allows people to know which food database entries to avoid in case of (important) errors such as drinks incorrectly classed as alcoholic
  • clematisa1
    clematisa1 Posts: 13 Member
    edited April 10

    I've had updates from the Myfitnesspal team re the Alcohol Issues they have changed mine to 0 and apparently it was Baxters Prawn Cocktail sauce that was being seen as alcohol - so beware if you're having Cocktail sauce, Prawn Cocktail or even Prawn Cocktail Crisps as the AI couldn't tell that it wasn't really alcohol. At least I've got to the bottom of their Alcohol / Sips for the moment. But I'm using a different app to track my calories for the present till I can ensure there won't be other problems with their AI in the future.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,154 Member
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48561420#Comment_48561420

    I strongly hope they also pursue a more general solution for this problem, since it can endanger their customers.

  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,904 Member
    edited April 10

    I have seen other threads about alcohol being counted where none was imbibed, but I admit it never occurred to me that it could be a legal issue. That's huge. It did occur to me that it could be an issue for people who were in recovery, however, and this legal issue could cross over to those in court-ordered sobriety programs.

    Personally, due to these, I think MFP should remove the alcohol element of the feature all together until they can ensure that it is accurate - the AI seems to be particularly inaccurate when it comes to the alcohol count. No one is going to get potentially investigated by the police, or have their parole messed up because MFP inaccurately counted their vegetable intake.

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