MFP nutrient counts don't add up to the calories

dengarrett

There are 4 calories per gram of protien and carb, and 9 per gram of fat. Based on what is currently in my MFP nutrition right now, here are the counts and expected calories

Fat 66g 594
Carbs 47g 588
Protien 41g 164

That adds up to 1346 calories. But my MFP diary says my current calorie count is 1210. So.... either the nutrient counts or calorie counts in my recorded food is not accurate. It would not worry me so much except that based on the nutrient counts, my recorded calories are too low.

Any thoughts or comments?

deathtaco

Looks like Artificial Sweeteners and the carbs from vitamins may not be counting towards your totals.

dengarrett

When I subtract out the fiber, the totals came to 1166.

Let me look at the sweeteners and vitamins...

MisdemeanorM

I know there is some "error" due to rounding, but it's usually a smaller gap than what you are reporting.

PS - did you compare the entries in the database with what's on the label of your foods? The person who entered them may have put them in incorrectly.

dengarrett

Well, subtracting out carbs from fiber, and carbs from vitamins gets me to 1126, which is still 84 calories off.

Thanks mjtwomail - let me go compare labels...

dengarrett

Here is what I found. The counts for the cereal and the carrot are the biggest culprits.

The thing about the cereal is that the MFP database matches the box! This is Millville Fiber Now cereal from Aldi. Gonna search the web on that one.

The carrot - that entry in the MFP database is just wrong. What I really ate was carrot chips that came bagged from Kroger, but I was just estimating I ate two carrot's worth and used that from the MFP database. When I use the actually named product from Kroger, the figures match (at least much closer).

Fwiw, the Janeway is a pasta dish based on a recipe that I enterd in MFP. I really expected it to be the culprit just becasue it was an entered recipe.

dengarrett

The numbers on Fiber One add up the same as Fiber Now. Ok - so what gives? Why do the numbers not add up on these products??

Pandorian

It's partly because MFP uses the entered data for each food item. They aren't looking at your total macro's for the day and going ok 50 grams of protein is 200 calories, 50 grams of carbs is 200 and 10 grams of fat is 90 for a 490 calorie total.... they're just taking the calories (and the grams) entered for each item and summing those together. So if an entry is wrong on a macro then you'll start seeing the differences.

That's for the MFP food diary totals. Why a product you've bought doesn't "match" via ingredients and the macro's they're allowed some wiggle room for recipe changes and not "all' the ingredients listed are present when it can be well we either used this or that, but we don't want you making it yourself so you don't know what we used.

dengarrett

It's partly because MFP uses the entered data for each food item. They aren't looking at your total macro's for the day and going ok 50 grams of protein is 200 calories, 50 grams of carbs is 200 and 10 grams of fat is 90 for a 490 calorie total.... they're just taking the calories (and the grams) entered for each item and summing those together. So if an entry is wrong on a macro then you'll start seeing the differences.

That's for the MFP food diary totals. Why a product you've bought doesn't "match" via ingredients and the macro's they're allowed some wiggle room for recipe changes and not "all' the ingredients listed are present when it can be well we either used this or that, but we don't want you making it yourself so you don't know what we used.

Well, a hundred calories is a very large amount of wiggle room! I'm still researcing - seems there are other products that have this sort of issue too. There must be some loop hole that lets companies count differently yet stay within regulated amounts.

ladyhawk00

It's partly because MFP uses the entered data for each food item. They aren't looking at your total macro's for the day and going ok 50 grams of protein is 200 calories, 50 grams of carbs is 200 and 10 grams of fat is 90 for a 490 calorie total.... they're just taking the calories (and the grams) entered for each item and summing those together. So if an entry is wrong on a macro then you'll start seeing the differences.

That's for the MFP food diary totals. Why a product you've bought doesn't "match" via ingredients and the macro's they're allowed some wiggle room for recipe changes and not "all' the ingredients listed are present when it can be well we either used this or that, but we don't want you making it yourself so you don't know what we used.

Well, a hundred calories is a very large amount of wiggle room! I'm still researcing - seems there are other products that have this sort of issue too. There must be some loop hole that lets companies count differently yet stay within regulated amounts.

Very much so. I don't know the details for all of them, but I do know they are allowed to "round" a LOT. Things like, it actually has .8 grams of x, but unless it's 1 or over, they don't have to list it at ALL. They are allowed a tremendous amount of wiggle room.

dengarrett

Ok - I found this on Wikipedia:

Because soluble fiber is changed during fermentation, it could provide energy (Calories/kilojoules) to the body. As of 2009 nutritionists have not reached a consensus on how much energy is actually absorbed, but some approximate around 2 Calories (8.5 kilojoules) per gram of soluble fiber. Regardless of the type of fiber, the body absorbs fewer than 4 Calories (16.7 kilojoules) per gram of fiber, which can create inconsistencies for actual product nutrition labels. In some countries, fiber is not listed on nutrition labels, and is considered 0 Calories/gram when the food's total Calories are computed. In other countries all fiber must be listed, and is considered 4 Calories/gram when the food's total Calories are computed (because chemically fiber is a type of carbohydrate and other carbohydrates contribute 4 Calories per gram). In the US, soluble fiber must be counted as 4 Calories per gram, but insoluble fiber may be (and usually is) treated as 0 Calories per gram and not mentioned on the label.

So, if I back out 4 calories for each gram of insoluable fiber I get to within three calories.

dengarrett

But the carrot is bogus