We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!
Beware the recipe importer!

Xiaolongbao
Posts: 854 Member
This made me laugh today.
I am cooking vegan lasagne and I used the recipe importer on MFP. I was a bit shocked that it came out to almost 800 calories a serve... I mean it is lasagne but still! Anyway once I got it cooking I sat down and checked why it was so high in calories. I found out that there were 600 calories of parsley included! I can't even imagine how much parsley you'd need to be eating to get 600 calories (for the record it was correctly logged as a quarter of a cup). There was also almost 800 calories worth of garlic logged! Another impressive feat - and once again correctly logged as 3 cloves, I have no idea how it came up with the calorie numbers.
I went through and fixed all the ingredients (other issues were no where near as interesting) and now it's about 250 calories a serve. Much more reasonable.
I guess I've learned a lesson about taking short cuts with the recipe importer.
I am cooking vegan lasagne and I used the recipe importer on MFP. I was a bit shocked that it came out to almost 800 calories a serve... I mean it is lasagne but still! Anyway once I got it cooking I sat down and checked why it was so high in calories. I found out that there were 600 calories of parsley included! I can't even imagine how much parsley you'd need to be eating to get 600 calories (for the record it was correctly logged as a quarter of a cup). There was also almost 800 calories worth of garlic logged! Another impressive feat - and once again correctly logged as 3 cloves, I have no idea how it came up with the calorie numbers.
I went through and fixed all the ingredients (other issues were no where near as interesting) and now it's about 250 calories a serve. Much more reasonable.
I guess I've learned a lesson about taking short cuts with the recipe importer.
0
Replies
-
oh the importer is absolute trash! Glad you figured out the mistakes in your recipe! I hate the importer and the "new" recipe builder that was actually the straw that made me quit logging at MFP and go elsewhere. Now I just like to hang around for my friends list and the forums!0
-
Agreed. You have to monitor what it has matched. It's done that to me also.0
-
Yeah, I've had the same problem. I still find it useful, for working out the individual serving sizes, but check the ingredients one by one to make sure the cals look right.0
-
I use the recipe builder quite a lot but now always check every ingredient before saving. The first time input 2 cloves of garlic I panicked when the recipe came out at over 6,000 calories per portion lol
0 -
What is up with the garlic? It did that to me too. I've been using the old school recipe builder where you do it one item at a time.0
-
i use the recipe importer all the time...
yes, you need to double check it LOL0 -
callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »i use the recipe importer all the time...
yes, you need to double check it LOL
Yep, just like the manual entry. Just match up/edit as needed.0 -
I just got a 6K calorie garlic too. And my sesame seeds were 2K. Definitely check haha!0
-
I always get that garlic entry. It's frustrated me so much that I want to throw garlic at the person who created that horribly wrong entry (or push them off a cliff and into a sea of their 800-calorie garlic cloves).0
-
LOL yes, I'll be going along fine and then something comes up that's thousands of calories more than it should be.0
-
I still use the old recipe builder for this reason!0
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 394.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.9K Getting Started
- 260.4K Health and Weight Loss
- 176.1K Food and Nutrition
- 47.5K Recipes
- 232.7K Fitness and Exercise
- 440 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.6K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153.1K Motivation and Support
- 8.1K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.4K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 16 News and Announcements
- 1.2K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.7K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions