My Fitness Pal Food Tracking - Inaccuracies

RubyRedRidingHood
RubyRedRidingHood Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi Everyone,

I'm starting on the extreme transformation carb cycling programme and I'm trying to food plan and was using my Fitness Pal to get the calories and breakdown but for example I was looking at 100g of banana and it said 30g of carbs but the total calories was 89 cals, yet I thought this would be a min of 120 cals. Is there any way of discerning which entries are correct??

Replies

  • cblue315
    cblue315 Posts: 3,836 Member
    Often I will verify against the USDA database.
  • NealNH
    NealNH Posts: 106 Member
    I second the USDA database.
    https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
    All of the items in the MFP database have been entered by users and many are very inaccurate.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    You have to check and verify all MFP food entries because a very proportion are completely wrong

    User entered database
    Green tick is a useless algorithm

    Just build your own verified foods and use your frequent and recent lists

    It is more time consuming up front than ongoing
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited September 2016
    That said 100g banana is around 89 calories
  • juliebowman4
    juliebowman4 Posts: 784 Member
    edited September 2016
    The inaccuracies are somewhat frustrating ......

    I'm going to build my own entry database.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
    edited September 2016
    In the ndb.nal.usda.gov database above, a search for "bananas, raw" finds
    09040, Bananas, raw
    for which a 100 g serving lists 22.84 carbs.
    You then use "09040, Bananas, raw" as a search term in the mfp food database and you'll find an entry that almost always matches the usda database.

    If you find a myfitnesspal food database entry that disagrees with the usda database, know assuredly that the usda database wins that fight every time. Users such as us are able to edit the mfp database to correct, or to screw up, entries, and it is necessary to double-check the usda database against your foods often.

    Always add the word "raw" to your food searches in the usda database if you're searching for fresh fruits and vegetables or even meat.

    I have a browser tab always open on the food database, and one always open on convertunits.com.

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