How do you deal with conflicting nutrition Database information?

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fanosatchmo
fanosatchmo Posts: 13 Member
in Getting Started
Forgive me if this question has already been posted; I did a search but did not find it.

What do you do when the Database contains multiple entries for the same food item, each with different values? For example, I am going to Ruby Tuesday's tonight and was scoping out what meal I could or would have. When looking up Salmon I come upon several entries with varying nutrition information:

Plain Salmon 330 calories 730 sodium
Grilled Salmon 291 calories 163 sodium
Ruby Tuesday Grilled Salmon 425 calories 956 sodium
Grilled Salmon (Smart Choices) 330 calories 468 sodium
Salmon (Fit Choice) 425 calories 956 sodium

This is just one sample. Some portions do say "1 serving" while others say "1 plate" so I admit that might be a factor, but how I don't know (the "plate" doesn't list side items with it). Any ideas? I'm new to this, so any help is welcome.
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Replies

  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    I would check the restaurant web site, but even then, know it is going to be an estimate because the plates aren't going to be fixed in exactly the same way. In your example, after double-checking, I would go with the Ruby Tuesday entry. Sometimes there is no way to get restaurant info (I'm looking at you, Carlos O'Kelleys!), in which case I look up individual items & see if I can find a comparable restaurant listing. If there are some entries that seem very low, they probably are. I will usually go with the medium/high figure.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,135 Member
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    I go by the nutritional information from the package I have or the website. It means another entry in the database, but I can choose to not share it with others. I don't even trust USDA entries.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    Oh, and as to inconsistent entries in general, try to look up the exact item by weight. In your example for salmon, say you bought a raw salmon filet at the store. I would look up "usda salmon raw grams" (and of course, weigh your salmon before you cook it). If it came, say, frozen in a package, you would enter the exact brand name and serving size based on the weight per serving listed on the package.
  • ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken Posts: 1,530 Member
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    Go to the restaurants website for nutritional info then find the entry that matches. If it is packaged food the same thing. Refer to the package and in any case if you cannot find the correct info then correct one of the incorrect entries.
  • brentfostwood904
    brentfostwood904 Posts: 51 Member
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    you have to do the research yourself, most of the food I add in myfitness pal is a food ive created myself, because i dont trust other people and often the foods have been incorrect. do it by grams not by "cups" or "bowls" or some random measurment. For meat people often get this incorrect because the cooked weight and even cooked nutritional content (as some fat leeks out of the meat for example) is different to the raw nutritional values. I weigh my food, I found out for example that a 1.2kg chicken yeilds about 600g of meat once cooked and the bones removed. Now some people would just put down 1.2kg chicken meat and their diary would be really incorrect. Scales are very useful.
  • cosmonew
    cosmonew Posts: 513 Member
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    This is one reason why I just don't eat out... plus, the cook is probably giving you more than the suggested serving, so you can't even go by the web sites suggestions. I would eyeball your plate and add things individually.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    cosmonew wrote: »
    This is one reason why I just don't eat out... plus, the cook is probably giving you more than the suggested serving, so you can't even go by the web sites suggestions. I would eyeball your plate and add things individually.

    If a person regularly adheres to their calorie allowance, an odd restaurant meal is not going to have a significant impact. Now if you eat out multiple times a week, that could be a problem...
  • fanosatchmo
    fanosatchmo Posts: 13 Member
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    Thank you! I am moving from eating out 1-2 times a day to not at all, and it's pretty tough. I'm too new (two weeks into this) to say I regularly adhere to my calorie allowance.

    Every Sunday night a bunch of friends get together at a restaurant. I didn't go last week because I couldn't find anything I could eat at the restaurant (I forgot which). This week it's at Ruby Tuesday and I'm blown away by the disparity in the nutrition information.

    If I were to take a restaurant's website info and increase it across the board by 2%, do you think I would be covered by a good safety margin? I don't mind being under my allowance, but going over is a definite no.
  • helenlovesruby
    helenlovesruby Posts: 39 Member
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    Sometimes it's clearly way under or over. It's best to round up in think
  • ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken Posts: 1,530 Member
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    fanosatchmo wrote: »
    Thank you! I am moving from eating out 1-2 times a day to not at all, and it's pretty tough. I'm too new (two weeks into this) to say I regularly adhere to my calorie allowance.

    Every Sunday night a bunch of friends get together at a restaurant. I didn't go last week because I couldn't find anything I could eat at the restaurant (I forgot which). This week it's at Ruby Tuesday and I'm blown away by the disparity in the nutrition information.

    If I were to take a restaurant's website info and increase it across the board by 2%, do you think I would be covered by a good safety margin? I don't mind being under my allowance, but going over is a definite no.

    Have you considered checking for nutritional info in advance? Many places have the pamphlets with everything listed others only have it online. You can browse the menu in advance and have more time to consider your options, as well as make sure you have the correct info to enter. Maybe have an alternate entree choice in mind just in case they are out of something or whatever. I don't know how much extra to allow for restaurant discrepancies, maybe that 2% will suffice. I usually just round to the nearest hundred to be safe.
  • fanosatchmo
    fanosatchmo Posts: 13 Member
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    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken wrote: »
    Have you considered checking for nutritional info in advance?

    That's actually what I am doing now :smile: Rounding to the nearest hundred might be easier.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
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    brentfostwood904 wrote: »
    I found out for example that a 1.2kg chicken yeilds about 600g of meat once cooked and the bones removed. Now some people would just put down 1.2kg chicken meat and their diary would be really incorrect. Scales are very useful.
    No, they wouldn't. There are entries for both raw and cooked. The nutrition does not change that much during cooking unless (not counting cooking oils and add ins, they get added in separately) it is something very fatty like bacon.

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    fanosatchmo wrote: »
    Thank you! I am moving from eating out 1-2 times a day to not at all, and it's pretty tough. I'm too new (two weeks into this) to say I regularly adhere to my calorie allowance.

    If you like going out, there's no reason to give it up. I went out 1-2 times per week (mostly to local restaurants without calorie information even) while losing weight, and consistently lost what I planned anyway. Just don't use going to a restaurant as an excuse to go nuts and keep in mind that they add more high cal ingredients (like butter) than you would at home and often have much larger serving sizes. I typically decide as soon as the plate comes how much I will eat.
    Every Sunday night a bunch of friends get together at a restaurant. I didn't go last week because I couldn't find anything I could eat at the restaurant (I forgot which). This week it's at Ruby Tuesday and I'm blown away by the disparity in the nutrition information.

    With chain restaurants I think going with the website information (and then finding it on MFP or adding it to your private collection) is fine and reliable enough. With something like "salmon," though, of course entries will be all over the place, because the ones you are looking at are different sizes and prepared differently. If cooking at home I'd use the USDA entry (at first it's good to check it on the USDA site too, until you get good at judging accuracy), make sure it was correct for type of salmon and whether it was cooked or raw when I weighed it. Different prepared salmon meals simply ARE going to be vastly different in calories, even more so than the ones you found here.
    If I were to take a restaurant's website info and increase it across the board by 2%, do you think I would be covered by a good safety margin? I don't mind being under my allowance, but going over is a definite no.

    I don't think you need to do this or that 2% is going to do much. You could make sure to leave a little on your plate or add in a 50-100 cal "restaurant tax" as a quick add if you really want to, though.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,686 Member
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    I ran into that yesterday: for lunch I ate a muffin from a café. The database gave the calories for a coffee cake muffin as anywhere from 240 to 700 calories. I listed one of the higher calorie muffins because what I ate was large, but I have no idea how large. Sometimes you just have to do a best guess.

    Big chain restaurants list their calories, but you can also ask them to modify the recipe to make food a bit less fattening. At Texas Roadhouse, they put a buttery sauce on top of the salmon. I asked them to cut it in half or leave it off.
  • leanjogreen18
    leanjogreen18 Posts: 2,492 Member
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    If I can't go with the restaurants website I pick the closest description in the database and add 1/4 portion to it for Justin (just in - case).

    Sometimes when it's easy to identify the ingredients I will select individual ingredients (like a burrito) and then add 1/4 portion on the highest calorie item agin for Justin. :)
  • cosmonew
    cosmonew Posts: 513 Member
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    You could just go for a drink or even a salad. I think ruby tuesday has a great salad bar. Stick with the salad items and away from the potatoe salads etc.
  • SapphireMoon23
    SapphireMoon23 Posts: 139 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    cosmonew wrote: »
    This is one reason why I just don't eat out... plus, the cook is probably giving you more than the suggested serving, so you can't even go by the web sites suggestions. I would eyeball your plate and add things individually.

    If a person regularly adheres to their calorie allowance, an odd restaurant meal is not going to have a significant impact. Now if you eat out multiple times a week, that could be a problem...

    That's true I eat out about once a week. I have to eyeball the measurements and add it to mfp. it may be off however I'm still losing weight. I mostly prep my own meals from scratch. Weigh everything. I pack my cooler in the morning with 2 meals & 2 snacks & 2 liters of h2o.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    edited November 2016
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    I once knew a woman who was on a weight-loss plan and her family ate out in restaurants frequently. She had 2 or 3 standard dishes that she almost always ordered depending on which restaurant type they were going to. One of her standards was salad with a grilled meat and salad dressing on the side (grilled chicken, grilled steak, grilled tuna, grilled salmon). She would have one piece of the table bread with olive oil dipper if it was served, and she always had water to drink. If she had dessert, it was shared or half was taken home.

    I asked her one time if she found it difficult to see everyone eating with abandon of obviously much higher caloric foods and she said it did not because she always felt satisfied instead of over-full at the end of the meal and didn't have to think about it over much.

    I did notice, however, that she never passed up the nacho's with cheese drizzled all over when they went Mexican.
  • rainbowfly
    rainbowfly Posts: 21 Member
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    I usually just pick the highest reasonable calorie entry based on experience with similar foods in the past. If I really have no clue, I look up the calories for the individual foods/portions served, and add 200-300 calories for extra oil/butter the restaurant most likely adds. In your case, I would choose the 425 cal entry as it seems more reasonable, especially the sodium (for a restaurant). That being said, I'm assuming the salmon came with a small side of steamed veggies or something similar. Otherwise for just the salmon, it would be one of the lower calorie items.
  • brentfostwood904
    brentfostwood904 Posts: 51 Member
    edited November 2016
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    cerise_noir wrote: »
    brentfostwood904 wrote: »
    I found out for example that a 1.2kg chicken yeilds about 600g of meat once cooked and the bones removed. Now some people would just put down 1.2kg chicken meat and their diary would be really incorrect. Scales are very useful.
    No, they wouldn't. There are entries for both raw and cooked. The nutrition does not change that much during cooking unless (not counting cooking oils and add ins, they get added in separately) it is something very fatty like bacon.

    the nutrition changes drastically during cooking, due to the weight changing significantly. For example meat could weigh about 70% of its raw weight, once it's been cooked, due to moisture loss. So if someone takes a 500g steak, cooks it, then puts into my fitness pal "500g roast steak" actually they have only eaten a 350g roast steak as this is its new weight once cooked.

    The issue of using the raw weight is obvious, it's a very common mistake people make with meat. You have to weigh your meat after youve cooked it to get the new value. Now once you have the cooked weight, the issue of using the raw value (e.g. saying ok 350g raw meat) is that how much fat was lost out of the meat, how did the nutritional value change during cooking? But the issue of using something like "350g roast steak" is also what doest that include? Does it include the juices or not? How well cooked was this steak compared to yours and what difference did that make? So the raw values are more reliable, but you have to also account for what was lost. It's better to cross reference different values to come up with the most likely value for your food.

    I regularly cook whole chickens and there is a lot of juice which is mostly fat, which is on the bottom of the tray. I dont know if these examples of roast chicken in myfitness pal includes this or not. I also couldnt find one example of a roast chicken on myfitness pal which was completely correct so I had to make my own entry after researching meat yeilds after cooking, and weighing food myself to find out exactly how much flesh is produced after cooking and bones removed. Also I had to split this into two separate foods, one for the chicken with no skin and one for the skin separately, to make sure everything was properly accounted for. I found out that most of the entries in myfitness pal for "whole roast chicken" were way way off. What I've got probably still isnt 100% but its the most accurate I can do. It's a lot better than using any of the other options I found on the site. There are a lot of issues like this and I think it's a lot better to make your own food entries to use yourself rather than trust other people to get it right.

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