MFP Encourages "Convenience" Nutrition
Replies
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Not really.
A lot of foods have nutritional info on, not just unhealthy convenience foods, rice, pasta, bread, fresh juice, milk, tinned fruit/tomatoes, frozen veg, all pre-packed meat that you get in supermarkets. Even bags of fruit/veg have it on, unless you buy loose. The only stuff that doesn't have it is meat made fresh there and then (butchers etc) and loose fruit/veg. Despite this, all you need is a quick google search and you can find out the nutrition in say 100g of chicken breast - or you could log it the same as your local store's chicken, it's exactly the same stuff anyway (I'm not talking chicken with added extras to preserve it...salt, flavourings etc, I just mean the stuff that comes into the store already packed/labelled up)
Once you've been here a fair while, and logged your fair share of foods, you've just built yourself up a pretty solid database of recent foods. One click and you can enter it again any time in the future, only needing to change the amount, and you know the info is correct (assuming you checked it the first time round!)0 -
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Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*0 -
I literally just found out yesterday that my phone has a scanner thing. So all this time I have been logging the old fashioned way.
I know about the scanner but I prefer to log on PC.
I don't know why. *shrug*
I'm the opposite, :laugh: I go to my phone if possible. I think it's just because it is what I am used to.
I haven't been able to use my scanner in awhile. Its all blurry and doesn't read it. I never bothered to see what the issue was or tried to fix it.
I've noticed that if I'm holding the food item in my hand, the micro movements are enough to cause the scanner to not work. The item being scanned needs to be set down on a surface then it works perfectly.
More to the OP, the items I mostly scan actually have to do with recipes for meals I spend a lot of time buying and cooking. My ready made or purchased snacks have already been long entered in my history and come up without me needing to scan. If I'm scanning it's just for grins and giggles. On the other hand, scanning ground turkey, corn, tortillas, refried beans, tomato sauce, cheese, sour cream helps me with a recipe that could have taken me like an hour to cook. Not to mention MFP helps me portion the serving sizes and then know the macro and micronutrient content of each helping I have0 -
Didn't read all the responses, but it is a fact that a large majority of Americans (not sure of other countries) prefer convenience/pre-packaged ready to cook/ready to eat foods as it fits in well with busy lives. Trends supported by market research. The learned skill of preparing and cooking your own food is sadly diminishing for many people. I never use the bar code scanner on my phone as I like to prepare my own food, or "doctor" some convenience foods to improve the taste or nutritional content. Many MFP'ers have added raw ingredients, you just have to search the database for them..if not there you can find nutritional facts lists on websites like NIH (National Institute of Health), Mayo clinic, WebMD, and many many websited including Wikipedia. I think MFP is terrific as each one of us with our differing eating habits can use it.0
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Not at all, you're lazy if you can't find "carrot raw" in the database.0
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Welcome to the real world. People eat convenience foods. People eat junk food. People eat all kind of stuff. Deal with it. Purists of any kind are prone to butthurt.0
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Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*
Wait. WHAT?!0 -
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Hopefully you all know that the coward that started this post has deactivated !0
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I get what they're getting at - a lot of those point-based systems and the food marketed with them have the effect of disguising that they are often in practice sub-1200 calorie starvation diets, which is basically a recipe for repeat customers. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy or wanting people to stay fat as much as I would catering to today's market. The whole 'lose weight fast' instant gratification thing, or as close to it as you can get when it comes to weight loss.I don't feel that way, but I did feel that way about WW. That's why I quit WW and came over to MFP.
I get your point re MFP, OP. However, I concur with the person above and think most programs like WW are worse. When I was in WW, all they focused on was how to eat processed snack foods with less calories to get your treats in. I like that I have a holistic approach to eating now, and while it does take more time, I enter my own recipes into my data base and eat what I like/what's good for my body and soul.
most of those fad diet foods are fake anyway, they are full of sugar and salt to make up for the lack of flavor and lack of portion size. Healthy Choice, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Light'n'easy are all high in sodium for alot of the foods, far more then you should be inputing but it's simple. They want you fat so you keep ordering there food. Sure you can lose weight on them if you deprive yourself for the rest of your life but is that really living?
Soooooo....sodium makes you fat?
And yes, rebound from a starvation diet masked with weird math and extra sodium will make you fat. Ever heard someone talk about how weight lost on a diet comes back with buddies? Yep.
Sodium might make you retain some water but make you fat? Really?0 -
Awwww yeah this is getting good0
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Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*
Wait. WHAT?!
:laugh:
I don't know if your comment was regarding my rambling on and on, or the functionality, so I will attempt to clarify both.
In the iPhone app, if I go to Settings --> My Foods and Exercises --> My Recipes, I can find existing recipes and click into them to edit them. For example I can click into my "Curried Honey Mustard Chicken" recipe. In this recipe I have entries for chicken breast, chicken thighs, and chicken breast tenderloins because I make it using whatever chicken I happen to have on hand. If made with chicken thighs, the quantity for chicken breasts or chicken breasts tenderloins would be set to 0, while the actual chicken thigh weight / calories are logged accurately. Likewise if I choose to make the recipe using light butter instead of full fat butter, light is set to 14g/50 calories and full is set to 0. This way I can use the same recipe to support multiple tweaks.
The idea here is to leverage the fact that when you log an entry , and later edit the recipe, MFP still maintains the fidelity of your previous entry - calories counts, macro & micronutrients, etc, while letting you update the recipe for future use.
Hmm... If I'm still way off here, you'll have to be more specific hahah0 -
No.Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!0 -
Not at all, you're lazy if you can't find "carrot raw" in the database.
THE IRONING IS KILLING ME DETERMINEDBUTLAZY
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Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*
Wait. WHAT?!
:laugh:
I don't know if your comment was regarding my rambling on and on, or the functionality, so I will attempt to clarify both.
In the iPhone app, if I go to Settings --> My Foods and Exercises --> My Recipes, I can find existing recipes and click into them to edit them. For example I can click into my "Curried Honey Mustard Chicken" recipe. In this recipe I have entries for chicken breast, chicken thighs, and chicken breast tenderloins because I make it using whatever chicken I happen to have on hand. If made with chicken thighs, the quantity for chicken breasts or chicken breasts tenderloins would be set to 0, while the actual chicken thigh weight / calories are logged accurately. Likewise if I choose to make the recipe using light butter instead of full fat butter, light is set to 14g/50 calories and full is set to 0. This way I can use the same recipe to support multiple tweaks.
The idea here is to leverage the fact that when you log an entry , and later edit the recipe, MFP still maintains the fidelity of your previous entry - calories counts, macro & micronutrients, etc, while letting you update the recipe for future use.
Hmm... If I'm still way off here, you'll have to be more specific hahah
Um. No. I just didn't know that was a thing on the app, but then I don't use the app much.0 -
Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*
Wait. WHAT?!
:laugh:
I don't know if your comment was regarding my rambling on and on, or the functionality, so I will attempt to clarify both.
In the iPhone app, if I go to Settings --> My Foods and Exercises --> My Recipes, I can find existing recipes and click into them to edit them. For example I can click into my "Curried Honey Mustard Chicken" recipe. In this recipe I have entries for chicken breast, chicken thighs, and chicken breast tenderloins because I make it using whatever chicken I happen to have on hand. If made with chicken thighs, the quantity for chicken breasts or chicken breasts tenderloins would be set to 0, while the actual chicken thigh weight / calories are logged accurately. Likewise if I choose to make the recipe using light butter instead of full fat butter, light is set to 14g/50 calories and full is set to 0. This way I can use the same recipe to support multiple tweaks.
The idea here is to leverage the fact that when you log an entry , and later edit the recipe, MFP still maintains the fidelity of your previous entry - calories counts, macro & micronutrients, etc, while letting you update the recipe for future use.
Hmm... If I'm still way off here, you'll have to be more specific hahah
Um. No. I just didn't know that was a thing on the app, but then I don't use the app much.
Yeah it is. But I shouldn't have to go get the app every time I want to edit a recipe. It ought to be simple to make the PC version have the same feature. I don't like the app and I avoid it as much as possible.0 -
I don't feel that way, but I did feel that way about WW. That's why I quit WW and came over to MFP.
^^^ Me too!!!0 -
Frankly, IMO, everything we log here is an approximation.
For example, I'm burning calories sitting here typing this. I burn calories walking to the copier, bathroom, etc.
If I can't find something in the database and don't readily have the nutritional information - I find something comparable. Unless you have a scientist following you around all day/every day, there is no way to completely and 100% accurately log your calories/fat/etc in and out.0 -
MFP's recipe function is much improved now on the PC. You can edit ingredients, amounts, and import recipes via url.0
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Not really, I find that a lot of packaged nutritional info is listed wrong on the database, anyway. It's pretty easy to build a meal/recipe from scratch, though.0
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I very rarely use the barcode scanning function so I don't really think so. I'm sure there are people who use it a lot.0
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I think it's how the individual eats to start with. If you like to cook or eat alot of veggies and fruit you build up your own data base of what you eat the most of and go off of that. If you find yourself choosing alot of prepackaged food, it's because that's how you eat.0
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Does anyone else fell like this site lends itself to prepackaged foods and/or commercial dining? It's easier to get nutritional information from those sources but you're really doing a disservice to your health!
Yes, 100% This is the reason I no longer log my food. When you eat a variety of home prepared foods from whole ingredients this site is not user friendly for logging meals.
I do it all the time, and I find it very user friendly. So I'd say it's not the tool (MFP) that encourages the 'convenience' nutrition, but the user. I add in meals that I do frequently so I just have one click to do it later. I add in recipes I make so I can add those easily. I've been doing this a year now, and I have no problem with recipes, meals, and whole foods/ingredients.
I'm sure it is easier if you have recipes you frequently use. But, I never use a recipe. I am a 'little bit of this, little bit of that' type cook. And even trying to look up something as simple as a red tomato will yield more than a dozen entries, so you either randomly pick one hoping it is correct, or you have to go to another site to get the correct information, then come back here and weed through all the entries till you find one that is correct and complete, or add a new one and add to the mess.
I logged for over a year. I used the recipe feature, which in itself is problematic in that it won't let you change amounts of ingredients. But it just took so much of my time. It was like having a second job.
Actually the tool being complained about - the phone app that enables easy *scanning* - will allow you edit quantities of ingredients. I do this all the time. Go to the same recipe, edit the weights. If I use oil instead of butter, change butter quantity to 0 and change oil to one tbsp or whatever. This literally takes seconds. Most of the "trouble" is in setting up the original recipe and then you're good to go. And I don't even use the website where the asterisk beside some entries is visible - this is good to know, I may use the website to add an ingredient for the first time in the future.
But like another member, again I would wonder about your having used the site for a year and participated in forums. There's tips flying around left and right all the time. And unless you eat exotic and new ingredients every single day of your life, after one year your frequent foods would be extremely easy to access, and you would know the calorie count of most foods and veg you use frequently. *shrugs*
Wait. WHAT?!
:laugh:
I don't know if your comment was regarding my rambling on and on, or the functionality, so I will attempt to clarify both.
In the iPhone app, if I go to Settings --> My Foods and Exercises --> My Recipes, I can find existing recipes and click into them to edit them. For example I can click into my "Curried Honey Mustard Chicken" recipe. In this recipe I have entries for chicken breast, chicken thighs, and chicken breast tenderloins because I make it using whatever chicken I happen to have on hand. If made with chicken thighs, the quantity for chicken breasts or chicken breasts tenderloins would be set to 0, while the actual chicken thigh weight / calories are logged accurately. Likewise if I choose to make the recipe using light butter instead of full fat butter, light is set to 14g/50 calories and full is set to 0. This way I can use the same recipe to support multiple tweaks.
The idea here is to leverage the fact that when you log an entry , and later edit the recipe, MFP still maintains the fidelity of your previous entry - calories counts, macro & micronutrients, etc, while letting you update the recipe for future use.
Hmm... If I'm still way off here, you'll have to be more specific hahah
Um. No. I just didn't know that was a thing on the app, but then I don't use the app much.
Yeah it is. But I shouldn't have to go get the app every time I want to edit a recipe. It ought to be simple to make the PC version have the same feature. I don't like the app and I avoid it as much as possible.
Yeah someone else created a thread about the app having more features than the website. Personally I don't see why not just use the app if it had features that she obviously valued, but that's just me.
My point was that anyone complaining about ease of scanning is obviously using the app and has access to all these goodies
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