Inaccurate nutrition info
parlinari
Posts: 1 Member
New poster here. Forgive me if this has been covered before. I am impressed with the huge database. However, although it is quite impressive, I have found that most entries are wrong. For example, the entry for slice muenster cheese show zero sodium, confirmed by numerous others. Not possible! Can we begin deleting those entries that are obviously wrong and build a good database for those watching their nutrition intake and not just calories?
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That would be awesome. But I'm not sure how to accomplish that...,0
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You have to do your own cross referencing when using the database since its user generated.3
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Unfortunately the vast majority of the database is user-created, and some people on here only care about the calories included and not macros/micros, or they may fudge the numbers to fit their goals. You can fix any entry that isn't verified (with a green checkmark)0
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Also, food formulations change over time (obviously there was no variation of meunster cheees that had 0 sodium, but you get what I mean). Also, people might eat only part of something, or take out something, or not put mayo on smoethnig that would affect nutrients but not note that anywhere. I either enter my own or very closely check anything that is from someone else.1
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For most of the time the database has been compiled, mfp has been a free service. They provide the platform, you curate and fact check the entries you use. The good news is once you find or create the foods you eat often, you can find that entry in your recent list and save some time.1
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I've found the 'recent' list is not so recent. I appears to track an unknown number of types of food and not simply replace older foods with more recent ones. It's hard to explain ... but the database of recent food is only about 100 food items ... and there are items on my list that I have not eaten in months, and then only had 1 time, while recently eaten foods drop off the list when something new comes in. .... This means I need to search the database for that food again ... and don't often find exactly the same database entry as I had in my diary before. ... it's a crapshoot and takes time to research to get the correct nutritional value ... so while the recent list does safe some time, I find myself searching the database for nearly every meal I enter.0
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I've found the 'recent' list is not so recent. I appears to track an unknown number of types of food and not simply replace older foods with more recent ones. It's hard to explain ... but the database of recent food is only about 100 food items ... and there are items on my list that I have not eaten in months, and then only had 1 time, while recently eaten foods drop off the list when something new comes in. .... This means I need to search the database for that food again ... and don't often find exactly the same database entry as I had in my diary before. ... it's a crapshoot and takes time to research to get the correct nutritional value ... so while the recent list does safe some time, I find myself searching the database for nearly every meal I enter.
Currently, the Recent list on the web version seems to be a plain, old database query that is regenerated each time the Food Diary is searched and displays up to the last 100 items a user added to their Food Diary, either by individual Meal, or by All Meals, depending on the display option. Those food items will eventually drop off of the Recent list display on the web version after a user logs more items. The Recent list query on the web version likely is not stored anywhere (it likely is regenerated every time the Food Diary is searched or the page is refreshed); which is why in the current design a user can not delete anything from it on the web version.
On the mobile apps, it seems the Recent list query can pull and display (using predictive text) more items from the mobile app Diary than what is displayed on the Web version. The Diary on the mobile apps is a subset of the user's Food Diary stored on the web version. If an item has been logged more than a few months ago, it might not appear in the current subset on the mobile apps, because of the mobile device's storage limitations.
A user can toggle the database query to pull from individual Meals or all Meals.0 -
New poster here. Forgive me if this has been covered before. I am impressed with the huge database. However, although it is quite impressive, I have found that most entries are wrong. For example, the entry for slice muenster cheese show zero sodium, confirmed by numerous others. Not possible! Can we begin deleting those entries that are obviously wrong and build a good database for those watching their nutrition intake and not just calories?
There are a couple factors at work here. Different regions are going to have different sizes and recipe variations, depending on demand and local manufacturing laws.
Second (and this one I only just realized the last couple weeks) are recipe changes. My favorite apple juice's recipe changed recently, adding 4g of sugar and 10 calories per serving. When I tried looking it up today I couldn't find the new information and had to add it manually.
And as mentioned above, some people are lazy or fudge information. Submitting edits is your best bet, but if I'm in a hurry while logging I'll usually pick the entry with the higher stats to be safe and edit it later.
A massive cleanup might actually be a bigger disservice to the community because the time it would take to verify it all would be immense, and anyone using obscure or rarely used entries would have to go back tgrough the process. In this case I think a "takes a villahe" approach is simply more feasible.0 -
I've found the 'recent' list is not so recent. I appears to track an unknown number of types of food and not simply replace older foods with more recent ones. It's hard to explain ... but the database of recent food is only about 100 food items ... and there are items on my list that I have not eaten in months, and then only had 1 time, while recently eaten foods drop off the list when something new comes in. .... This means I need to search the database for that food again ... and don't often find exactly the same database entry as I had in my diary before. ... it's a crapshoot and takes time to research to get the correct nutritional value ... so while the recent list does safe some time, I find myself searching the database for nearly every meal I enter.
I don't know if this works on the app version, but when I want a food that has fallen off my recent list, but that I know I have logged before, I go to "View Full Report (Printable)" (green button at the very bottom of the food diary page on the website version), change the date range to cover the period in which I believe I logged the food, and search for it. I note the date, go back to the food diary, go to the date the food was logged, and copy the meal to today (then, of course, I have to delete the other foods that got copied with it, since you have to copy the entire meal). It's a pain, but it still seems easier than trying searching the database and combing through dozens of in accurate entries.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've found the 'recent' list is not so recent. I appears to track an unknown number of types of food and not simply replace older foods with more recent ones. It's hard to explain ... but the database of recent food is only about 100 food items ... and there are items on my list that I have not eaten in months, and then only had 1 time, while recently eaten foods drop off the list when something new comes in. .... This means I need to search the database for that food again ... and don't often find exactly the same database entry as I had in my diary before. ... it's a crapshoot and takes time to research to get the correct nutritional value ... so while the recent list does safe some time, I find myself searching the database for nearly every meal I enter.
I don't know if this works on the app version, but when I want a food that has fallen off my recent list, but that I know I have logged before, I go to "View Full Report (Printable)" (green button at the very bottom of the food diary page on the website version), change the date range to cover the period in which I believe I logged the food, and search for it. I note the date, go back to the food diary, go to the date the food was logged, and copy the meal to today (then, of course, I have to delete the other foods that got copied with it, since you have to copy the entire meal). It's a pain, but it still seems easier than trying searching the database and combing through dozens of in accurate entries.
I do this all the time on the web version. In fact way too much, because I have nearly five years worth of logged items. For web browsers, CTRL-F brings up the find function after running the report, and it speeds up the process.
For the mobile apps, everything in the Diary subset that is stored on the device at the time will be displayed using predictive text. If it does not show up with that, you have to go to the web version.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've found the 'recent' list is not so recent. I appears to track an unknown number of types of food and not simply replace older foods with more recent ones. It's hard to explain ... but the database of recent food is only about 100 food items ... and there are items on my list that I have not eaten in months, and then only had 1 time, while recently eaten foods drop off the list when something new comes in. .... This means I need to search the database for that food again ... and don't often find exactly the same database entry as I had in my diary before. ... it's a crapshoot and takes time to research to get the correct nutritional value ... so while the recent list does safe some time, I find myself searching the database for nearly every meal I enter.
I don't know if this works on the app version, but when I want a food that has fallen off my recent list, but that I know I have logged before, I go to "View Full Report (Printable)" (green button at the very bottom of the food diary page on the website version), change the date range to cover the period in which I believe I logged the food, and search for it. I note the date, go back to the food diary, go to the date the food was logged, and copy the meal to today (then, of course, I have to delete the other foods that got copied with it, since you have to copy the entire meal). It's a pain, but it still seems easier than trying searching the database and combing through dozens of in accurate entries.
I do this all the time on the web version. In fact way too much, because I have nearly five years worth of logged items. For web browsers, CTRL-F brings up the find function after running the report, and it speeds up the process.
For the mobile apps, everything in the Diary subset that is stored on the device at the time will be displayed using predictive text. If it does not show up with that, you have to go to the web version.
Good point about CTRL-F. I tend to assume that everyone knows that when I say "I search for it," that's what I mean, but I guess for the generation that's more at home on apps, that's probably not a given.1
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