Warning: Potato nutrition information

sodakat

I don't agree that the most accurate entries contain the words "USDA" or "generic". For instance here are some potato entries without asterisks:

Potatoes - Red, flesh and skin, baked
Potatoes - White, flesh and skin, raw
Potatoes - Baked, flesh, with salt
Potatoes - Russet, flesh and skin, raw

There are other, similar vegetable entries without asterisks that do not contain the words "generic" or "USDA" so I'm not sure which are MFP approved now. I had not heard anything about the database being updated to include "generic" or "USDA".

Peppers - Sweet, red, raw
Cabbage - Red, raw
Cabbage - raw
Cabbage - Savoy, raw
Lettuce - green leaf, raw
Celery - raw
Apples - Raw, with skin

From what I can tell, if the entry has no asterisk, it will often contain a "-" in the description. I agree that its hard to wade through all the entries to find the non-asterisked entries.

Then we have these buggars which also do NOT contain asterisks but don't have gram amounts in the drop down:

Potato Salad simple
Eurest - Mashed Potatoes
Potato pancakes - Home-prepared

How can those be accurate for all of us? No weights given at all. I wonder why they don't have asterisks???

TheVirgoddess

I wish you could see the asterisks in the app. There's no drop-down either. That's why I always end up going to the USDA database myself and adding another new entry that I know is correct. Just adding to the clutter of foods, I know. But, I generally only come to the website to browse the forums, and I do that from my iPad. I think I've only used my computer to access MFP once. :frown:

If you pull up the food, where you can edit the serving size, the measurement is right below that - tap the measurement and if there is a drop down menu available on the website, it will pop up on your screen. Hope this helps

RockstarWilson

From now on, I will weigh just about everything.

It is strongly recommended to do this for everything. If you measure everything based on a capacity, there are always spaces, there are always extra kernels of whatever it is, and mounds, etc. If you go by weight or mass (I use mass--the math is simpler when calculating servings) you can get an EXACT quantity of how much you are eating (as exact as your scale tells you). I use a digital scale, so that there is less to wash afterwards. Also, you can use the tare button to cancel out whatever you are putting the food on.

Put some of your favorite cereals on the scale. You will be surprised how many servings you get in one bowl! I definitely was.

firebloom

Does anyone know if listing it as cooked or not really makes that much of a difference? I can't imagine that a potato gains or loses any calories if all I do is wash it and bake it whole (without oil) for instance.

Timelordlady85

I weigh and measure EVERYTHING! Even the cereal has been off on certain serving sizes according the weight listed on their box verses the estimated count per serving, at least so far with Frosted mini wheats its been the case and a few other items I've scanned didn't match the calorie amount from the jar/box/bag of food too. I double check everything!

sympha01

I don't agree that the most accurate entries contain the words "USDA" or "generic". For instance here are some potato entries without asterisks:

Potatoes - Red, flesh and skin, baked
Potatoes - White, flesh and skin, raw
Potatoes - Baked, flesh, with salt
Potatoes - Russet, flesh and skin, raw

There are other, similar vegetable entries without asterisks that do not contain the words "generic" or "USDA" so I'm not sure which are MFP approved now. I had not heard anything about the database being updated to include "generic" or "USDA".

My point wasn't that ALL entries that contain the word "generic" are okay. It was that SOME of them are. Many of them are user-submitted entries. But using the word "generic" in your search will help make sure that the good USDA entries will float towards the top of your search results. Also, the word "USDA" in the description, in my experience, is a pretty good guarantee that it's actually a user-submitted entry. I have no idea why, when MFP put the USDA entries in the database themselves back in the beginning, they didn't label them.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that MFP is doing some user testing and we don't all see the same things in the database (they've done that before). But here is what I see:



As you can see, there are results both with and without asterisks. But the "good" results are in here and show up in the first scroll full of results. In a way, potatoes are a bad example because they're a produce item that people eat both with and without the skin. MFP very obligingly includes both types of entries so this kind of entry it's best to specify in your search whether you want them with the skin or peeled. For potatoes, I always search "raw, flesh and skin" to get the one I'm looking for.

RockstarWilson

Does anyone know if listing it as cooked or not really makes that much of a difference? I can't imagine that a potato gains or loses any calories if all I do is wash it and bake it whole (without oil) for instance.

I'm not entirely sure on potatoes, but it's been my experience that most foods lose or gain moisture when cooked and so the weight and the concentration of nutrients does change along with the cooking.

In chemistry lab, we got to set a nut on fire! So I learned that, at some point, the food's calories are being deprived of energy because of the heat, but I think as long as you don't burn the food, it is pretty nominal.