MFP Recipe Builder

ChasityLindsey
ChasityLindsey Posts: 36 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
How accurate do you think the MFP recipe builder is.

Replies

  • FredDoyle
    FredDoyle Posts: 2,272 Member
    Exactly as accurate as the food you enter into it...
    I'm not sure I understand the question. I have tons of recipes entered and they are very accurate because I entered all the food items into the database or double checked existing ones.
    You can check most foods here:
    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    As accurate as the entries you choose. So, anywhere from wildly inaccurate to pretty close.
  • lucan07
    lucan07 Posts: 509
    As above like any computer data rubbish in equals rubbish out, but added correctly its near enough not to matter!
  • shawnatheobald
    shawnatheobald Posts: 31
    Well if you put in exactly what you put in the recipe, and tell it the correct amount of servings, then very.
  • fyoung1111
    fyoung1111 Posts: 109 Member
    I most often prepare recipes by using ingredient weight instead of volume ie .7g of coarse Kosher salt instead if 1/4 tsp. When I use myfitnesspal to create a new recipe, this is often difficult or impossible to achieve with any degree of precision.

    As an example, if I want to add 1 pound of dried cannelloni beans to a recipe, I am offered options of 1/4 cup or 1 container (2 1/2 cups 117g) neither of which I can directly use. I can do some math and figure out that 117g = .258 lbs. Therefore, 1 lb must be 3.876 containers or 9.69 cups which doesn't exactly pass the sniff test. It is maddening and happens with nearly any recipe I try to create.

    It would be really, really nice if MFP would provide for easy conversions within and among both the metric and imperial systems. It would be better yet, if it supported volume/weight equivalencies (such as provided in The Book of Yields: Accuracy in Food Costing and Purchasing by Francis Lynch). Then we could all use whatever weights and measures are familiar, convenient or preferred ie 1 lb. of dried great northern beans with 1/2 tsp of salt and 250 g of andouille sausage and 8 cups of chicken broth. Why not?
  • Katla49
    Katla49 Posts: 10,385 Member
    From your lips to the ears of MFP! I wish the measurements were available just as you describe. This is the most frustrating part of trying to use the food calculator.
  • fyoung1111
    fyoung1111 Posts: 109 Member
    I try to let them know every chance I get. Worked this into an unrelated post a few days ago under topic "HRM v Runkeeper v MFP for walking calorie burn".

    More of the ingredients seem to be including a 100g portion size. That plus this website: http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_volume_cooking.htm will often get you where you need to be but it is quite a pain. I find that an average recipe takes me 40-60 minutes to input if I am shooting for any degree of accuracy at all.

    Part of what drew me into MFP to begin with was the ability to read the bar code off of something and instantly get the nutritional information logged. What MFP needs to understand is that people like me who are interested in nutrition and healthy eating avoid foods that come with bar codes and nutrition labels.

    Maybe if we make enough noise, they will eventually listen to us.

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