Am I missing something? (MyFitnessPal nutrition info)

aukatiemae
aukatiemae Posts: 3
in Food and Nutrition
So, when I'm searching for foods in the MyFitnessPal database, is there a way to tell what ingredients are in an item (other than when ingredients are listed in the title of that food choice)? For example, I baked spaghetti squash last night, with garlic and a teaspoon of olive oil. When I search for "Spaghetti squash" in the database, there are lots of options, and I can't tell which one to choose. I see the nutrition info, but is there a description anywhere? Ingredients? Am I missing it? Thanks in advance for any help!

Replies

  • SugaryLynx
    SugaryLynx Posts: 2,640 Member
    You have to piece them out. Like, you weigh your spaghetti squash, add it, weigh your oil separately and add it. Etc. There's a recipe builder, too you can use if something has a lot of ingredients. For meals for the family, I use the recipe builder. Weigh and add all the ingredients and how many it serves. Then, put a bowl on my scale, zero it out and then add the food divide it up for serving sizes. I still guess on big meals like chili though. It's better than selecting someone else's random entry though
  • aukatiemae
    aukatiemae Posts: 3
    That's what I was afraid of! OK. Thanks so much!
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
    What I've done is start from the basic, raw ingredients and just add them up, either as a recipe (you can access that from the website), or just as they are for that meal. I prefer to use the Generic foods, not those added by other MFP members. Usually, if a database entry has a load of quantity options, including 100g, a cup or a head (of broccoli), then it's generic and based off the USDA database. I always use the weight if absolutely possible, and I've set my scales to grams because it's just easier.

    Feel free to check out my diary if you like. It looks like a jumble of different ingredients, because.. well, it is!!
  • aukatiemae
    aukatiemae Posts: 3
    Thanks! That's really what I have been doing with MFP for the past couple of years, but it seems like with other diet trackers, there were more detailed descriptions of the entries. Just seemed easier that way. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't just overlooking it with this one.
  • srslybritt
    srslybritt Posts: 1,618 Member
    There are recipe builders online (I believe the one I use is new recipe) where you can type in all of your ingredients and the servings, and it spits it out a lot faster than going through the individual ingredients on MFP. For things I eat a lot, that's the route I go.
  • SugaryLynx
    SugaryLynx Posts: 2,640 Member
    Yep, the more accurate way is to add everything separately yourself. It does stink for ingredient heavy recipes. Even if there were an entry including those things you don't know how much compared to yours it is.

    Very rarely, if I say go to a restaurant that isn't in the database and they don't list a calorie count, I pull up the best match in the database but again that's rare as that could be very off
  • likitisplit
    likitisplit Posts: 9,420 Member
    If you eat thing together, generally, make them into a meal. You can post the entire meal to your diary and tinker with the individual ingredients.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Either list the individual ingredients or if it's something you make often, use the recipe builder. On occasion I would use some generic recipe in the data base for whatever (ie chicken noodle soup) with the understanding that someone posted up there recipe and it may be vastly different from my own...I just did it when I needed to do a quick entry and was satisfied that it appeared representative of what I think the nutritional content of that item would be.
  • Swiftdogs
    Swiftdogs Posts: 328 Member
    As others have said, it's best to build your own. But there are a lot of prepared items in the database from sites like allrecipes.com . You can look on the recipe site and try to find one that's a close match to what you made. I've done that for one-time meals.

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