Is there a food database 101 post somewhere? It's driving me nuts

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W_Stewart
W_Stewart Posts: 237 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I feel like I waste a lot of time sifting through food database entries to find an accurate item. It's full of made up or personalized entries, along with a much smaller number of accurate entries.

Today I wanted to log a medium apple. There were no USDA entries except for ones people made up. And entry after entry showed zero confirmations from others - I don't use those. How can there not be an entry without an asterisk???

Other issues as well. I'm hoping there is a good reference somewhere to make me a better user of the database. Help!

Replies

  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,979 Member
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    for fruits and veggies, I generally find searching for X, raw (e.g., "apple, raw") turns up a no-asterisk entry with USDA data.
  • W_Stewart
    W_Stewart Posts: 237 Member
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    The more I try to be accurate the more I am dismayed by the food database. I'd say I find an accurate match only 30% of the time.

    I wish there was a filter we could apply to ignore unverified entries. It does none of us any good to have everybody able to submit foods without any quality control. And if the users are expected to do this through confirmation then give us the ability to ignore (or sort) by this. Why should my search show me 20 different matches, none of them confirmed? And none of them accurate!
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    This thread has lots of useful tips:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
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    wahoowad wrote: »
    I feel like I waste a lot of time sifting through food database entries to find an accurate item. It's full of made up or personalized entries, along with a much smaller number of accurate entries.

    Today I wanted to log a medium apple. There were no USDA entries except for ones people made up. And entry after entry showed zero confirmations from others - I don't use those. How can there not be an entry without an asterisk???

    Other issues as well. I'm hoping there is a good reference somewhere to make me a better user of the database. Help!

    Usually for fruits & veggies I look it up by grams or ounces & pick the one that seems the highest.
  • tibby531
    tibby531 Posts: 717 Member
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    I rely on my phone's "recent" list a lot for many of my foods. but when I'm adding a new one, I check nutritiondata.com and look for one that correlates to those findings... that I can also do gram (or ounce) measurements (I'm soooooooo high maintenance. ;) ). it's a bit of an ordeal, but it works. and definitely use "raw" in searches!
  • W_Stewart
    W_Stewart Posts: 237 Member
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    When I go to add a food to my daily diary it first shows me my "Recent" entries. This is helpful although I notice things disappear after a week or so. Is there a way to permanently add these to my profile so I can reuse them again later? It sometimes takes awhile to find the correct/accurate entry from the food database and I had previously selected these from many similar entries as they were correct. I'd like to get them again quickly without having to re-find them in the food database.
  • tibby531
    tibby531 Posts: 717 Member
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    you can create "meals" and "recipes" to save in your foods. I have many of both.
  • beemerphile1
    beemerphile1 Posts: 1,710 Member
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    It is often mentioned in the "MFP Suggestions/Feedback" forum that people wish they could search only the official entries without all the user submitted entries. It can't be done at this time.
  • fallenoaks4
    fallenoaks4 Posts: 63 Member
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    Produce is often listed in its plural form - apples, oranges, peas
  • FootyMax
    FootyMax Posts: 1 Member
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    The hot mess that is the food database may actually cause me to stop using MyFitnessPal. At a minimum, there should be a way to filter out all of the non-official, erroneous user-submitted entries.
  • nickycat73
    nickycat73 Posts: 61 Member
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    I agree so many entries its making me crazy and sometimes every option has an * by it....I don't get it.

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