Food tracking problems
mjrc2
Posts: 121 Member
I am a from scratch/eyeball cook and I never really use recipes. I cook for just me and honestly, I eat some weird stuff. I just bought a food scale so that food tracking would be easier... Is there a way to just type in everything, hit enter once and be done??? For example, I just made a quick pasta/veggie/sardine one serving meal. I used 45 g of regular white pasta, 35 g of carrot, 5 g of garlic, 80 g of red cabbage, 80 g of sardines, one teas. of tamarind concentrate, theres more, but you get the idea...you get the idea. There has got to be a fast way to enter this stuff into my food tracker!!! I tried to enter in the "recipe" section, but it still led me to the super clunky food search function. HELP!
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Seriously folks, it took me longer to type in my dinner than it did to cook the darned thing. THere's got to be a faster way-or maybe a better site that I do not know about!1
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i set up recipes then log 1 serving2
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I agree. I chose this app thinking it would simplfy tracking everthing I eat and support my goal.
It has been way to confussing and time consumming.
very dissappointed! looking for another App or website?4 -
There was a great website (free) by the USDA, it even tracked how much from each food group, but it shut down June 30th of this year. If I find a more efficient one, I will be sure to share!1
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The bar code scanner on the phone app can also be a time saver.4
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Eat something out of the frozen section... jk jk0
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I cook meals from scratch using lots of ingredients and dont find it time consuming - I eat a lot of the same ingredients regularly so it's not hard to find them on my list. Once you've been doing it a while you should have a decent list of foods and not have to search for new entries a lot.4
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I'm sorry you are frustrated currently, but the members above have posted good advice to lessen your laundry list of individual items to record.
There's no easy button in life and occasionally apps too! Just remember, with most things, it takes time and effort to start up and get going, but once you've gotten into the routine of doing things - they become easier over time and even second nature. Don't give up on the app just yet, even though it may be frustrating to begin with.
The time will be worth the reward in the long run.
Good luck! 4 -
Once I got going it was not bad at all, and I am also a cook at home person. Under Food, check out My Foods (add an ingredient not in the database), My Meals (put together standard combinations you use all the time), and Recipes (which will let you enter each recipe manually or even import one from a URL). And when you use the Food Diary, things you eat all the time show up there. Most people only eat about 20 or fewer fairly standard meals, so this gets easier and easier over time.3
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How do I see my previous days food logs? Thanks0
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For some recipes that I only do occasionally I don't use the recipe builder. Say I make a rice dish. I know I'll be using 100gr pork mince (it's already portioned and put into freezer). So I log 100gr of this type of mince. I know I need about 5gr of cooking oil, and that the veggies and sauces I'll use will be about 120kcal.
If my dinner will be between 500-600kcal then I now know how much rice I can cook. I measure it and put in cooker. Then prepare the vegetables, weigh them when cut, log and put into wok.
While they are cooking I prepare for example garlic, spring onion and sensame seed and log. Take veggies out of wok when ready and put mince, garlic, spring onion and sesame seed into wok and cook until crispy. Then add soy sauce and something fermented, and I usually end up at the calories I wanted.
Thing is: once I have the protein logged and know how much starch to use the cooking doesn't really take that much more time. It's just a few seconds from chopping board to scale (and log) and to pan. As I often use the same veggies they come up on the app first, thus after verifying them once I can quickly log them.2 -
Some things that make logging easier:
- Meals you eat often but are slightly different every time: use the "save as meal" function then you only need to add or remove an ingredient or two when you log it
- Meals that are always the same: save and recipe
- Using the copy to/from date function to log meals similar to those previously eaten or plan a similar meal for a future date
- Logging individual foods you eat frequently: use the "recent" or "frequent" filter
- Logging a known calorie amount without having to add a food: use the quick add tool
- Typing in all ingredients in one list: use the recipe function and pick "add recipe manually". You still have to make sure ingredients are matching correctly, but you'll need to do less manual searching. Make sure to set the number of servings to 1.7 -
I do all my cooking from scratch, through the week it's just me at home so I add the recipes as I'm eating rather than as I'm cooking - takes the boredom of eating alone away a bit3
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I tried that and it did not work.amusedmonkey wrote: »Some things that make logging easier:
- Typing in all ingredients in one list: use the recipe function and pick "add recipe manually". You still have to make sure ingredients are matching correctly, but you'll need to do less manual searching. Make sure to set the number of servings to 1.
While I completely understand what you're saying RnnerGrl, I work full time, attend school full time, and I live alone--everything that gets done has to be done by me. I like most of the features on this site, but if I find something more efficient, I would rather go that route. The USDA app worked and was efficient, so I know it's possible.RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »I'm sorry you are frustrated currently, but the members above have posted good advice to lessen your laundry list of individual items to record.
There's no easy button in life and occasionally apps too! Just remember, with most things, it takes time and effort to start up and get going, but once you've gotten into the routine of doing things - they become easier over time and even second nature. Don't give up on the app just yet, even though it may be frustrating to begin with.
The time will be worth the reward in the long run. Good luck!
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Is the recipe function not working for you? Here is how it works using the web version
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I tried that and it did not work.amusedmonkey wrote: »Some things that make logging easier:
- Typing in all ingredients in one list: use the recipe function and pick "add recipe manually". You still have to make sure ingredients are matching correctly, but you'll need to do less manual searching. Make sure to set the number of servings to 1.
While I completely understand what you're saying RnnerGrl, I work full time, attend school full time, and I live alone--everything that gets done has to be done by me. I like most of the features on this site, but if I find something more efficient, I would rather go that route. The USDA app worked and was efficient, so I know it's possible.RunnerGrl1982 wrote: »I'm sorry you are frustrated currently, but the members above have posted good advice to lessen your laundry list of individual items to record.
There's no easy button in life and occasionally apps too! Just remember, with most things, it takes time and effort to start up and get going, but once you've gotten into the routine of doing things - they become easier over time and even second nature. Don't give up on the app just yet, even though it may be frustrating to begin with.
The time will be worth the reward in the long run. Good luck!
All fair points made. I'm sorry I am unable to help provide a solution to aid you in your quest for a more efficient way to log your food, but I certainly hope there is one out there for you! Obviously, we all want more efficient ways of doing things; time savers are huge when it seems there aren't enough hours in the day with all the crazy!
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Thanks @amusedmonkey, I will certainly try it again tonight. Maybe I just didn't scroll down?2
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probably wouldn't even build a recipe for a one serving thing - i would just log the ingredients in my dinner section (this is what i do when i'm just making a one serving meal)3
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Honestly, I just quit cooking every day. I meal prep two entrees and a snack on Sundays that cover my daytime meals for the week. Dinner is either out or I have a protein shake or some cereal or something. Having to only cook and track one day a week has been SO incredibly good for managing my weight AND my temper--I don't hate having to come home anymore!0
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deannalfisher wrote: »probably wouldn't even build a recipe for a one serving thing - i would just log the ingredients in my dinner section (this is what i do when i'm just making a one serving meal)
She wants the function of typing a list of foods instead of searching for them manually. The recipe function can be used for that as a workaround.1 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »deannalfisher wrote: »probably wouldn't even build a recipe for a one serving thing - i would just log the ingredients in my dinner section (this is what i do when i'm just making a one serving meal)
She wants the function of typing a list of foods instead of searching for them manually. The recipe function can be used for that as a workaround.
got it - but the recipe function uses the same database and then you still often have to search through the results to find the correct (or a correct entry)...whereas if they are frequently used foods, they would be populated in her diary - which would speed up the time it takes2 -
I use the "Meals" section also for dishes I prepare the way you describe - in which I vary the amounts of things I add in. Ro do this you:
- log the ingredients in the main dairy,
- "save as a meal" (you can even upload a pic via the phone app).
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Eating whole, fresh, unprocessed foods and avoiding factory made or grown food has become a main goal in my life, but to each his/her own.3
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deannalfisher wrote: »probably wouldn't even build a recipe for a one serving thing - i would just log the ingredients in my dinner section (this is what i do when i'm just making a one serving meal)
I have been doing that...just hoped there was a quicker way!0 -
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I also often cook for more than one day. I log everything that goes into this big pot of food. Then I divide the pot up into x meals, say 3, and then I quickly divide all weight measurements by three in the diary. One meal might be a bit heavier, another one a bit lighter, but overall it has the right amount of calories. So I can just copy this entry to when I eat the other two meals.2
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When I throw together a "whaever is gonna go bad first" stir-fry with small bits of 8-12 ingredients, it takes longer to log it than it does to cook it.livingleanlivingclean wrote: »I also often cook for more than one day. I log everything that goes into this big pot of food. Then I divide the pot up into x meals, say 3, and then I quickly divide all weight measurements by three in the diary. One meal might be a bit heavier, another one a bit lighter, but overall it has the right amount of calories. So I can just copy this entry to when I eat the other two meals.
When I get a break from school I will do this and freeze a lot of stuff.-0 -
Eating whole, fresh, unprocessed foods and avoiding factory made or grown food has become a main goal in my life, but to each his/her own.
Since you mostly use whole foods, you may find this helpful (or maybe not, because I realize it seems like an extra step): If you find the food you want in the USDA Food Composition Database, and use the exact same text string to search MFP's database (e.g., "Chicken, broilers or fryers, dark meat, thigh, meat only, raw"), your top result will almost always be an entry that matches the USDA entry -- i.e., it will be a "good," usable entry, with a serving size option for grams (you may have to click on the serving size units to get a drop down list of options). For fruits and veggies, you'll soon learn that the USDA string is generally in the form of "onions, raw" or "bananas, raw."
I'm not sure that your hope of just being able to type ingredients and not have to look at the returns is realizable from a user-sourced database. Even for whole foods, there are a lot of database entries that are based on different forms (peeled, unpeeled, weighed raw, weighed cooked, etc.) and there are lot of entries that are just wrong. At this point in technology development, human judgment is still needed to choose among those entries.
In my experience, and the experiences of many other users I've seen reported on these boards, logging can get easier with time.
If you're making meals that you eat at one sitting, I would not bother with the recipe builder that amusedmonkey suggested, because if you enter the food directly into your diary, rather than create a recipe and log that, it will become part of your recent foods. You probably use a lot of the same foods over time, and it will be a lot quicker to select the food from your recent list (on the web), or start typing the food and have it located on your recent list (on the app) than to have to verify database entries.4 -
When I throw together a "whaever is gonna go bad first" stir-fry with small bits of 8-12 ingredients, it takes longer to log it than it does to cook it.livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
If those 8-12 foods are in your list of recents it takes no time at all. My lunch for next week has a lot of ingredients (11), all but one in my recents list. It took me about 30 seconds to check the box for each one and put in how much I wanted to incorporate. The more you do it, the quicker and easier it gets.
The one that wasn't took slightly longer...perhaps a minute or two. I had to find the nutritional info online, find a database entry, check they matched (they didn't), then edit it. It's now in my diary, and in my recent food lists (as well as "my foods" as I edited it).4
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