MFP listed recipes

Bandd52
Bandd52 Posts: 2 Member
in Recipes

when searching for recipes to log, why don’t MFP provided recipes show up in the search?

Answers

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,925 Community Helper

    Show up in the food database? The food database is mostly user-entered, and users enter whatever they wish.

    The meal planning feature in MFP Premium+ works somewhat differently, but the recipes in the MFP blogs are mostly just recipes they've linked from other parts of the internet to help us find tasty, nutritious, calorie-efficient ways to eat. I don't think it's realistic to expect them to add all those recipes just in case someone eventually uses that recipe in an exact, unchanged way. I've used their recipes, but I still enter the recipe myself, using exactly the amounts of ingredients I personally used.

    My advice would be never to use anyone's recipe-type entry from the food database, things like "meat lasagna", "ham sandwich", "fried egg". We have no idea how much cheese, mayo, oil or other calorie-dense things like that the original person used, nor do we know how accurate they were trying to be. (There are a few people around here who've apparently thought that if they logged something as low calorie, that alone made it low calorie. 😆 Nope.)

    I know this feels like a lot of effort at first, but IME that effort is an investment in long-term success. There's a learning curve, there's getting foods into the recent/frequent list so they come up first when adding to the diary, there's getting our routine recipes entered into the recipe builder, etc. It feels like a lot during that learning/building phase. Because of investing that effort, later it becomes easy and quick. Success is worth that effort.

    Best wishes!

  • pony4us
    pony4us Posts: 187 Member

    Also don't forget about the "meals" option. For a recipe that I know will always be the same I do put it in my recipe section. If there is a recipe that tends to change a bit I will list the ingredients and amounts in my diary then save it as a "meal" Then if I am going to use it later but know it will have a small change when I log I can. For example most of the time my eggplant parm is simple, eggplant, fresh motz and tomato sauce but sometimes the cheese changes, or I add meat like sausage or ground beef, or I add ricotta. The meal option makes those changes and logging easier for me to log. But for quiche I have recipes for basic cheese quiche and basic crustless quiche…then when I log I just have to add in the extras. After some time you will have your own lists and as Ann said it will be some effort in the beginning but it makes logging so much easier later.

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