Anyone living outside the states and trying to use MFP?

mayonie1

Im in South Africa and using the app

Must say there are SOOO many processed foods on here it drives me crazy when I am just looking for a tomato or a DAMN POTATO!! But look for more generic things. Luckily I cook most of my meals from scratch, so raw foods are a lot easier to find than and packaged foods.

Good luck!

I also live in South Africa, but I seem to be having a lot of luck using the barcode scanner on the MFP App. Most things are on the database, and if you cannot find the brand you are using, I just stick to searching for Woolworths and the ingredient. Should be pretty close :drinker:

I'm also from South Africa and I always find most of the foods. My food is easy anyway mostly vege, fruit and meat.

Snow3y

If you look at the back of the container of whatever food it is you're eating, the nutritional info WILL be there. Just use that information with a scale measuring your food and you're fine.

Obviously someone who doesn't live outside the Western world.

No, it is NOT on the back of every container as it is not a law in most other countries. And, sometimes, if it is there, it is not in English.

From south africa, so you're half right

MyJourney1960

If you look at the back of the container of whatever food it is you're eating, the nutritional info WILL be there. Just use that information with a scale measuring your food and you're fine.

yeah. in the US, you are correct.

In other countries - not so much.

In israel the law is that they have to put the nutritional info *only* per 100 gram. some manufacturers have caught on to the fact that we don't always eat 100 grams worth of things and they add the info "per pack" or "per portion". but not all. do you have any idea how difficult it is to try and figure out: (a) how many pieces of frozen chicken patties are in that bag? (b) if the entire bag weighs X grams and there are 6 or is it 7 patties in there, how many does each weigh? and (c) if eyou finally figured out that each weighs 64.3 gram, and 100 grams is 754 calories, how many is each patty? and yes, doing this standing in front of the freezer section is exactly how i want to be spending my day...

annekka

I'm down in Guangzhou and I've lost a good amount of weight. I have a similar problem in that my school has a buffet lunch, and I have NO idea what goes into those foods.

My strategies have been:
-find an equivalent that sounds close enough
-when you do find an equivalent use the one with the most calories per portion
-overestimate portion size to account for not knowing what is in it
-try to keep to the simpler stuff
-pre-log if possible
-always leave a deficit and avoid eating back exercise calories as much as possible to account for the unknown
-kj to calorie converter
-http://www.convertunits.com/from/kilojoules/to/calorie+[nutritional]
-have a Chinese speaking friend use Baidu to find out the general nutritional info for a dish

Feel free to add me, my diary is open to friends, you can always PM me to know what I count as what!

nirajseth

hi ,
I am from India and find most of the Indian food I eat listed on MFP.

Also I have turned more towards salads, juices, vegetables and fruits.I guess fruits and vegetables are easy to find al around the world.

I pack my own lunch to office and plan what I will eat early in the day, so that I have a fair idea of how many calories I am consuming.

When eating out , I take a huge spoonful of Isabgol which is basically fiber and I tend to eat out less .Also when you are eating out you can order salads and soups which are always a saf bet.Portion control is something excercise for my favorite eat out foods

Hope this helps.

mumblemagic

Ok, not in China but hopefully this is relevant......

I have actually found that cooking chinese and other east asian food (in the UK) is lower calorie than some of the "Western" meals that include potatos and chips etc. Providing you eat a limited amount of rice (I recommend about 50g dry weight for white rice should be plenty for one person for a main meal), and meat wise have chicken or other lean cuts, or fish, or even go for vegetarian substitutes like tofu, and keep the oil use to max 1 tablespoon full for a meal for 2, you should be fine. Noodles are amazing for the stomach filling capacity per calorie BTW - 125g dry weight (not sure how much that is for fresh noodles) is again plenty for 1 person and you can find the generic versions. Not sure what the vegetable availability is where you're living, but most chinese food over here includes lots of vegetables, so I'm guessing at least some in china does too. Plus, chillis boost your metabolism so help you burn more calories.....

Maybe try ordering an (English) chinese food cook book on amazon and see if you can try some of the recipes?

andiebaco

I'm down in Guangzhou and I've lost a good amount of weight. I have a similar problem in that my school has a buffet lunch, and I have NO idea what goes into those foods.

My strategies have been:
-find an equivalent that sounds close enough
-when you do find an equivalent use the one with the most calories per portion
-overestimate portion size to account for not knowing what is in it
-try to keep to the simpler stuff
-pre-log if possible
-always leave a deficit and avoid eating back exercise calories as much as possible to account for the unknown
-kj to calorie converter
-http://www.convertunits.com/from/kilojoules/to/calorie+[nutritional]
-have a Chinese speaking friend use Baidu to find out the general nutritional info for a dish

Feel free to add me, my diary is open to friends, you can always PM me to know what I count as what!

Allo! I follow the same strategies!!

I am in Singapore, and before that I was i nSwitzerland, when I started using MFP. And I think I had a harder time in CH for this than in here... The food that I buy in the supermarkets I can scan the code and it appears in here (I don't buy "american" food too often, but I must admit that my breakfast/dinner options are on the western side!). I have lunch in the food courts but I try to keep it around a few options that were recommended by my trainer (local).

Soups are quite filling and low cal in comparison with other dishes (my fave is slice fish bee hoon soup), add some extra spicy if you can deal with it and you'll eat it slower!

MJ_Watson

I live in Korea. Interesting to hear about the struggles of others using the app overseas. However, I haven't really had much of a problem. Well, of course the barcode scanner doesn't work and I have had to add a LOT of things to the database, but after a month or so, it became much easier, since I was eating the same things often. When I eat at home, I'm either using whole foods or something with nutritional info on the package. (In Korean, of course, but I picked up those terms quickly from adding stuff to the database.) For eating out, I've found most of my favorites are in the database already. Sure, the calorie count may not be exact, but it's close enough.

My biggest struggle has been dealing with different romanizations, honestly. Is 김치 찌개 going to be listend as kimchi jjigae or kimchi chiggae or kimchijjigae or will it be GIMCHI.... :explode: Yeah, so I often have to type in foods numerous times to turn up the result I need. But again, once you add it, that problem goes away. The few times I've had to add street foods or other native dishes, I've found calorie counts online, either in English or from Korean sources.

Of course, if I couldn't read and write the language semi-competently, I can imagine having a much harder time of it all.