Finding out accurate calorie count when measuring foods

MelAb8709

Frequently when someone posts that they are not losing weight, people will respond that they must not be measuring their food accurately - for example, they say every single day you log one 100 gram banana, but how can you always be eating the same sized banana?

I personally am not too concerned or convinced that something like this - a difference of maybe 10-20 calories - would cause someone to not lose any weight, but now I'm wondering where do we find out how many calories are contained in fruit.

Example - I search on MFP for 100 g of banana, and I find one that says 89 calories, one is 103, one is 105. I have no idea which is accurate, because they're all added by MFP users. Is there some book or database out there that gives the "right" answers?

kaniyopatel

bump

echofm1

I always go by the USDA's calorie counts for fruits and vegetables. Sometimes you'll have to look it up online to be sure, but other times it'll say "USDA" in the title of the food or in the brand.

Also, if you can find MFP's logging for USDA fruits and vegetables, it'll let you choose all the options in addition to 100g. For example, the entry for romaine lettuce lets you choose as your serving size "1 leaf outer", "1 leaf inner", "shredded", etc.

Kitship

There is a little section at the top right of the nutritional information (I think) that says how many people have confirmed accuracy.

I just use the entry with the highest amount of confirmations. Or, I just find one that is an average of all of the differences.

You're correct that a difference of 10-20 calories would not throw anything off - but when it happens frequently and with multiple meals it can affect progress.

wtw0n

I use a database created by The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare ('cause I'm a Finn), but it can be viewed in English:
http://www.fineli.fi/foodlist.php?lang=en

MelAb8709

Just checked out the USDA's website - this is great. I'm going to check if this is available in an app.

ActuarialChef

The result without an asterisk has many options for serving sizes. This means that the data was imported by MFP from the USDA database (available for your own searching here: ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list)

When searching for fruits and vegetables, try this format:

"Bananas - raw"
"Apples - raw"
"Potatoes - cooked"
etc.

Basically, fruits & veggies are listed in their plural form, with "raw" or "cooked" (sometimes "baked" or "broiled", etc.). If you can't find something that's a pretty standard food item, try going to the USDA website and searching for it. Their search engine starts populating the results as you type. Then, when you find out how the item's name is structured, you can come back to MFP and enter it like that.

Also note that if the item says USDA in the title, someone else entered that item into the database. Therefore, while they used the USDA database as their source, there may be data entry issues. What you're really looking for, as I noted above, is the lack of an asterisk.

PM me if you need additional help. I'm not always very good at checking back in on threads.



Edited because: missing a period and a closing parentheses.

caseythirteen

The result without an asterisk has many options for serving sizes. This means that the data was imported by MFP from the USDA database (available for your own searching here: ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list)

When searching for fruits and vegetables, try this format:

"Bananas - raw"
"Apples - raw"
"Potatoes - cooked"
etc.

Basically, fruits & veggies are listed in their plural form, with "raw" or "cooked" (sometimes "baked" or "broiled", etc.). If you can't find something that's a pretty standard food item, try going to the USDA website and searching for it. Their search engine starts populating the results as you type. Then, when you find out how the item's name is structured, you can come back to MFP and enter it like that.

Also note that if the item says USDA in the title, someone else entered that item into the database. Therefore, while they used the USDA database as their source, there may be data entry issues. What you're really looking for, as I noted above, is the lack of an asterisk.

PM me if you need additional help. I'm not always very good at checking back in on threads.



Edited because: missing a period and a closing parentheses.

^^ This! Try and use as many MFP added entries as possible because it's the USDA stuff. The trick is to use the plural a lot because that's how they add it. Bananas instead of banana, etc. Then you can use the grams option to be as close to accurate as you can get if you use a food scale.

MelAb8709

The result without an asterisk has many options for serving sizes. This means that the data was imported by MFP from the USDA database (available for your own searching here: ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list)

When searching for fruits and vegetables, try this format:

"Bananas - raw"
"Apples - raw"
"Potatoes - cooked"
etc.

Basically, fruits & veggies are listed in their plural form, with "raw" or "cooked" (sometimes "baked" or "broiled", etc.). If you can't find something that's a pretty standard food item, try going to the USDA website and searching for it. Their search engine starts populating the results as you type. Then, when you find out how the item's name is structured, you can come back to MFP and enter it like that.

Also note that if the item says USDA in the title, someone else entered that item into the database. Therefore, while they used the USDA database as their source, there may be data entry issues. What you're really looking for, as I noted above, is the lack of an asterisk.

PM me if you need additional help. I'm not always very good at checking back in on threads.



Edited because: missing a period and a closing parentheses.

Thank you! This is so helpful!