Confused and frustrated by food database

braddillman

General advice on how to use the food database is welcome.
Is there a 'tutorial site' out there?

1) How many calories in a baked, boneless, skinless chicken breast? (Which answer is authoritative?)
2) How many calories in a chicken breast? It doesn't say it's skinless or boneless so I assume both.
3) Why the big difference with a skinless breast vs skinned breast - is that the skin? Really?
4) If I cook with skin and don't eat it, is that the same as skinless (almost)?
5) If I bake a boneless, skinless chicken breast - and don't add anything, no oil or fat, etc. - how does that change the calories? Where would those extra calories come from?

6) How do you use an entry like 'baked teriyaki chicken' which says '1 serving', yet doesn't say what the serving size is? How is that of any use at all? If it's useless, why is it allowed in the database?

I'm surprised these things aren't fixed by now, web sites like MFP have been around for a while. What's up with that?

badfeet67

LOL, welcome to database hell...

Because everything is entered by users, there is no "authoritative" source. Even stuff that is taken from a box is sometimes wrong when you scan the barcode since the manufacturer has changed the recipe.

Also, some entries are obviously folk lying to themselves and entering an absurdly low value to make their calories fit.

And, as far as I can tell, there is no way to delete bad entries.

And then there are entries like you are discussing where tons of folks have entered variations of the same thing.

(And YES chicken skin does have a _ton_ of calories in it. If I cook with skin then don't eat it, I count it as skinless but add 1/4 helping just so I'll overestimate instead of underestimate).

The only authoritative source is the product label. If you can't get that then I look on the manufacturers web site and then find the closest one in the database. If you don't have access to nutritional labels at all, then you just have to estimate as best you can. I usually go with the median of the multiple listings of the same (similar) item.

ell_v131

General advice on how to use the food database is welcome.
Is there a 'tutorial site' out there?

1) How many calories in a baked, boneless, skinless chicken breast? (Which answer is authoritative?)

I try to go by USDA listing whenever possible or verify with google. Safest yet is to enter the weight when raw. Most restaurants count this way and at home it's the best way too

2) How many calories in a chicken breast? It doesn't say it's skinless or boneless so I assume both.

No way to tell, so don't use such entry

3) Why the big difference with a skinless breast vs skinned breast - is that the skin? Really?

Yes, the sking has quite a lot of fat underneath. Also the muscles that are being worked out the most on an animal have the most calories, such as thighs and wings on a chicken as compared to breast.

4) If I cook with skin and don't eat it, is that the same as skinless (almost)?

I'd say yes but not sure

5) If I bake a boneless, skinless chicken breast - and don't add anything, no oil or fat, etc. - how does that change the calories? Where would those extra calories come from?

Calories don't change, unless some fat flows away. Generally the reason there is more calories in baked chicken is because the chicken meat shrinks. i.e. you start with 100g (172cal) of raw chicken and bake it, then weigh it. now it weighs 80g (just an example, depends on method of cooking), but has the same amount of calories (172). If you had a piece of this baked chicken that weighs 100g after cooking, it would have 215 calories, as it weighed 125g when raw

6) How do you use an entry like 'baked teriyaki chicken' which says '1 serving', yet doesn't say what the serving size is? How is that of any use at all? If it's useless, why is it allowed in the database?

You don't use such entry unless you created it yourself

I'm surprised these things aren't fixed by now, web sites like MFP have been around for a while. What's up with that?

MFP is a community page and everyone can create entries. MFP doesn't really feed the database anymore, so blame it on the rest of us. When I want a good listing for a basic ingredient, I add USDA to the search word and come up with a good listing.

ashenriver

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.

As far as I can find there is no official food listing for a banana, so I made one up.

Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

I think there is going to be a big learning curve and now I have learn ratio math again.

xcharbzx

I check everything with google. Pasta is the worst, even google doesn't have a steady answer.

Marymoe138

I definitely use a scale and anything that has a barcode on it I try to scan into my phone. I double check as the entries are sometimes incorrect in the system. You mentioned chicken breasts and although I am not sure of your stores, I am able to scan and find my meats in the database as well and it states whether it is skinless or not.

Morgaath

Welcome to a list of foods world wide.

A Mars bar in America is one thing, while they use a thinner chocolate shell on them when shipped to Japan, and a Mars bar in Europe is more like what we in America know as a Milkyway.

Then there is the US Coke vs Coke in Mexico...

And on and on and on.

CipherZero

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.
Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

Unless you ate the peel, I wouldn't include it.

If you ate the peel, there's something serious wrong with you. :laugh:

knra_grl

yes buy a scale and weigh and measure - enter your food in the search engine when adding food a look for what item you are adding ie: for chicken breast you have all options - boneless skinless, roasted with skin, roasted without skin, etc and then to the right you choose your portion size and add it - now once you add it and you realize that it is higher in calories than you thought and want to reduce the portion do that - delete the entry and enter it with your new portion size - sometimes i weigh things and the measures are different than the one used but have found that there is almost always a gram measurement sometimes you have to weed through them to find the one you want

All this is time consuming at first but once you have done it for a bit it gets easier

Edit - also if you make a recipe on a regular basis use the recipe data base on your profile so it is always there - this can also be edited if you add or remove something - this will save you a lot of time down the road

Pamela_in_Progress

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.
Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

Unless you ate the peel, I wouldn't include it.

If you ate the peel, there's something serious wrong with you. :laugh:

LOL :laugh:

RobertHButler

I look at the nutritional label and try to match up with something close to it. I put in the brand name and the packaging description and sometimes that helps. I hate when someone puts in 1 piece or 1 portion and does not say the size of that portion.

GothicaAdore

Wait till you want to have food at a local, non-national chainstore restaurant. I'm using Chipotle to substitute for the vegan burrito I'm eating tonight.

rockmama72

I'll throw out the other perspective here. LOGGING itself is my weight loss trick (for awareness) and the accuracy is sort of secondary. I know a lot of MFPers swear by exactness. That's lovely, do it. I am pretty careful most of the time, with my food scale and my ounces on the digital scale, but sometimes I have to estimate what's in the database. How do you calculate calories when you simmer a ham bone for 4 hours and make a soup, or when you slow-roast a piece of beef and make gravy from the drippings? You'll never get it right. In those instances, I guess as well as I can. I look at other entries and try to average them and pick the best representation.

BarbieAS

Use the USDA entries whenever possible (non-starred entries). Compare nutritional information in the database to what is on the package you purchased, or enter such foods if they don't exist. That should cover off about 95% of non-restaurant food.

Use a food scale, etc. and weigh/measure absolutely everything possible. That way, you don't need to worry about what "1 serving" is; you should be able to enter the food in ounces or grams or mL or whatever.

Remember that MFP is a free, user-supported website. Many of the entries are inaccurate because the person who entered them made an error and/or didn't care about the integrity of the database (or the information changed since it was entered). The trade-off of getting all of these wonderful tools for free is that sometimes you need to do a little of your own legwork on verifying nutritional values. To me, it's more than worth it.

Don't forget that you can edit entries when you find an error. It takes a minute or two, but if everyone did that then the database would be much cleaner. Take responsibility for your part in your weight loss AND this community and don't expect to be able to rely on the work of others for everything.

cmeiron

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.

As far as I can find there is no official food listing for a banana, so I made one up.

Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

I think there is going to be a big learning curve and now I have learn ratio math again.

A tip that's saved me a bunch of frustration is, when you're looking for produce (and often meat), if you type in the PLURAL of the item (if there is one - "lettuce" would just be lettuce, for example) and the word RAW, you usually get the correct USDA data (the one without the * next to the entry name) (so here, "bananas raw"). If it's a banana or other fruit that you would peel, the weight of the peeled fruit is the one you would enter.

ashenriver

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.

As far as I can find there is no official food listing for a banana, so I made one up.

Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

I think there is going to be a big learning curve and now I have learn ratio math again.

A tip that's saved me a bunch of frustration is, when you're looking for produce (and often meat), if you type in the PLURAL of the item (if there is one - "lettuce" would just be lettuce, for example) and the word RAW, you usually get the correct USDA data (the one without the * next to the entry name) (so here, "bananas raw"). If it's a banana or other fruit that you would peel, the weight of the peeled fruit is the one you would enter.

Thanks, I did search banana a bunch of different ways and there were no unstarred entries. There were a few with the name USDA and I think I will use those and just check the information every so often.

And no I did not eat the peel, so nothing wrong with me

BarbieAS

I got my kitchen scale yesterday and for fun, I weighed and ate a banana.

As far as I can find there is no official food listing for a banana, so I made one up.

Now I am wondering is that banana with peel or without peel?

I think there is going to be a big learning curve and now I have learn ratio math again.

A tip that's saved me a bunch of frustration is, when you're looking for produce (and often meat), if you type in the PLURAL of the item (if there is one - "lettuce" would just be lettuce, for example) and the word RAW, you usually get the correct USDA data (the one without the * next to the entry name) (so here, "bananas raw"). If it's a banana or other fruit that you would peel, the weight of the peeled fruit is the one you would enter.

Thanks, I did search banana a bunch of different ways and there were no unstarred entries. There were a few with the name USDA and I think I will use those and just check the information every so often.

And no I did not eat the peel, so nothing wrong with me

When I searched for "bananas" in the database, the USDA unstarred entry ("Bananas - Raw") was the second one on the list.