Wishful calorie counts on MFP?

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Ed98043
Ed98043 Posts: 1,333 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Often when I'm searching for foods to add to my log (and sometimes when I snoop and read other people's diaries) I see calorie counts that are just so obviously wrong. For instance, I ate an avocado yesterday and found several potential entries on the MFP list...the first one I clicked on gave a calorie count of 90. For a whole avocado! It should be closer to 300. And in someone's diary recently they had 3/4 of a cup of "generic nuts and chocolate trail mix" listed as a snack...175 calories. Every other nuts and chocolate trail mix listing said 420 to 480 calories for 3/4 of a cup.

So I wonder how many people are fooling themselves by picking through the list for the lowest possible calorie count, and how many of those are complaining that they can't seem to lose weight?

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  • BaconMD
    BaconMD Posts: 1,165 Member
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    I've seen 35-calorie eggs listed in diaries...

    MFP has way too many foods in the database, and the majority of it is incorrect anyhow.

    I just TRY to stick to the USDA entries (the ones without asterisks) whenever possible. It takes some doing, because MFP doesn't filter or sort them to the top (try searching for "tomato paste" and finding the USDA entry).

    I think I'm going to write my own nutrition tracker that does what I want, uses only USDA data and foods I enter myself, and doesn't have 800 entries for the exact same food, all with different, incorrect info.
  • tommygirl15
    tommygirl15 Posts: 1,012 Member
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    I'm a bit on the OCD side when it comes to making sure I have the right calorie count for the foods I'm logging, I'll even overestimate when in doubt to allow for any error. Some of the entries in the database make me cringe because they are so far off, like you said. I think a lot of people (especially the newcomers) are not really aware of this and will take some research on their part to get it right. It's worth putting in the time to figure it out if you want results.

    Oh, and I can only dream of a 90 cal avocado!! :)
  • Shadowknight137
    Shadowknight137 Posts: 1,243 Member
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    I love finding brands of raw ground beef that are 63 calories per 100g.

    That said, t's not just MFP that does it... Some products seem to have magic nutrition counts. On the packet, Harraways Oats has 129kcal for 40g serving, but when you google the nutrition in oats, it's around 155 for the same amount. Weird.
  • Healthy_fresh_start
    Healthy_fresh_start Posts: 183 Member
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    if i dont have a number on the packet to follow i try to add a middle ground number, wont lie, the small ones are tempting though ;)
  • exile40
    exile40 Posts: 161 Member
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    Often when I'm searching for foods to add to my log (and sometimes when I snoop and read other people's diaries) I see calorie counts that are just so obviously wrong. For instance, I ate an avocado yesterday and found several potential entries on the MFP list...the first one I clicked on gave a calorie count of 90. For a whole avocado! It should be closer to 300. And in someone's diary recently they had 3/4 of a cup of "generic nuts and chocolate trail mix" listed as a snack...175 calories. Every other nuts and chocolate trail mix listing said 420 to 480 calories for 3/4 of a cup.

    So I wonder how many people are fooling themselves by picking through the list for the lowest possible calorie count, and how many of those are complaining that they can't seem to lose weight?

    A database tidy up would be very useful. I think it’s a combination of people not reading the packaging properly and just not being honest with themselves.A Pancake with syrup seems to range from 200 to 900kcals.
  • Ed98043
    Ed98043 Posts: 1,333 Member
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    Here in the US, the government gives a 20% leeway on the manufacturer's nutritional label. So they can state the calories as 20% lower or higher than they really are and still be in compliance. It always seems to be underestimated rather than overestimated, of course.

    Restaurants that list calorie counts are under no such rule and have been known to underestimate the calorie counts of their meals by 50%.

    Sorry - forgot to quote. Replying to Howl_Shadow.
  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    I choose the item that corresponds to what I ACTUALLY ate. Maybe the person who input the information got it from a specific package--could have been a snack mix that was 30g instead of 45g. Huge variations are usually the byproduct of serving size. If you want to be accurate--you CAN be accurate. It's your choice and those who "cheat" by choosing the lowest option are only cheating themselves.
  • divaindy
    divaindy Posts: 108 Member
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    I'm a bit on the OCD side when it comes to making sure I have the right calorie count for the foods I'm logging, I'll even overestimate when in doubt to allow for any error. Some of the entries in the database make me cringe because they are so far off, like you said. I think a lot of people (especially the newcomers) are not really aware of this and will take some research on their part to get it right. It's worth putting in the time to figure it out if you want results.

    Oh, and I can only dream of a 90 cal avocado!! :)
    Ditto
  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
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    For whole foods I try to find USDA stats. I've seen some crazy entries for fruits and veggies, and i suspect some of them are personal preparations of that fruit.

    Most of my canned/boxed foods like canned beans and flour are my grocery's house brand, so I add the grocery store name when i search. So far the entries have matched the stuff on the package exactly.

    My biggest problem is my farmers market buys - farmers market meats aren't labelled for nutritional info, and when I'm buying farmer-made sausage or different cuts of meat, I'm having to make a best guess as to nutritional content. For example, my farm butcher's ground beef is quite lean, as not much fat cooks out of it, but I don't know what its actual percentage is.
  • Kimberleebennett
    Kimberleebennett Posts: 21 Member
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    I tend to go the opposite way and choose the highest if I'm not sure. It seems to be working so far. It was tempting to choose the smaller option the first time but then I realised being honest was going to help me achieve my goal much faster. My husband asked me the other day if I had enough calories left for a couple of squares of chocolate after dinner. I did considering I took a really long walk that day on top of my usual excercise but surprised myself my saying yes I do have enough calories but I'd rather have the weight loss than the chocolate. I think if people really want the results they will be realistic with the calories.
  • KRobertson36
    KRobertson36 Posts: 25 Member
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    I don't know about anyone else, but I'll often put the higest cal amount that the data base actually has then the only way to cheat is making me eat less.

    Just my 2 cents
  • ChocoCheeseaholic
    ChocoCheeseaholic Posts: 55 Member
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    It's frustrating trying to find an accurate count so I finally started saving things as a custom "my foods" if I eat it frequently. For instance, I have 1oz of Atlantic farm raised salmon saved as per the USDA nutritional database. Now, whenever I cook anything with salmon I just choose that and adjust the servings to match however many oz I'm actually eating. Doing this also helped me realize just how fatty farm raised salmon is compared to wild caught (but so much cheaper... grrr) which I think is the reason for some of the variation in MFP.

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