Calories rocket when recipes copied??

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Jadecmullin
Jadecmullin Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there,
Sorry if i am not doing this in the correct manner, i am new to using the app! I am following Slimming World and find that when i copy recipes for my dinners the calories never match to what i see online.
I am unsure which platform is incorrect whether myfitnesspal add on a few or the websites displaying the recipes are.
Thanks,
Jade

Replies

  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    You need to check the food matches that MFP gives you; the calories will also only be consistent if you use exactly the same brand/amount as in the recipe
  • puffbrat
    puffbrat Posts: 2,806 Member
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    To add to the previous poster, some of the entries that the recipe builder pulls are wrong. I cooked a recipe this weekend that I had previously put in the recipe builder a year or more ago. I just went in to adjust amounts. But in doing so, I noticed that the dried oregano entry in the recipe said 1 teaspoon was over 200 calories. That is obviously incorrect, so I had to search for a more accurate entry. This happens a lot with many foods in the recipe builder.
  • jasondjulian
    jasondjulian Posts: 182 Member
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    puffbrat wrote: »
    To add to the previous poster, some of the entries that the recipe builder pulls are wrong. I cooked a recipe this weekend that I had previously put in the recipe builder a year or more ago. I just went in to adjust amounts. But in doing so, I noticed that the dried oregano entry in the recipe said 1 teaspoon was over 200 calories. That is obviously incorrect, so I had to search for a more accurate entry. This happens a lot with many foods in the recipe builder.
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    Relevant to both of these comments, I created a recipe from the web (Yumly) just yesterday.. Instant Pot Stroghanoff Meatballs... MFP matched the ingredients, but I almost missed it, it had garlic powder, 1tsp, 1250 calories!

    Um.. no, no it doesn't. More like 10 calories...lol. That would have definitely made a difference.

    The end result in calories was within 10% of what the recipe's author stated it was, macros were all even closer in terms of protein, carbs, fat, etc.

    Does anyone know how to change the MFP option for a serving size when creating a recipe? it always defaults to number of servings for a portion, sometimes (OK, always) I would prefer this to state actual grams of "product".
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    You can't just upload a recipe and call it a day...you need to go through the ingredients to make sure the database entries being used are accurate.
  • jasondjulian
    jasondjulian Posts: 182 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    You can't just upload a recipe and call it a day...you need to go through the ingredients to make sure the database entries being used are accurate.

    I find this to be especially true.. go through the matched ingredients list, make sure it is what it should be, find alternatives that make more sense or are more accurate.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    The trick for that one is to log .33 servings of 3 cloves -- the 3 cloves serving size has correct nutritional data.
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
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    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    The trick for that one is to log .33 servings of 3 cloves -- the 3 cloves serving size has correct nutritional data.

    The real trick is to weigh the garlic on a food scale and log the precise number of grams used.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,330 Member
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    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    The trick for that one is to log .33 servings of 3 cloves -- the 3 cloves serving size has correct nutritional data.

    There’s actually a garlic figure of something like 840 calories for one clove (I may have slightly exaggerated that!). Think someone added in an extra digit and left it, so even weighing your garlic won’t work with that one! 🤣
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    There was a very long stickied thread in the Suggestions/Feedback forum full of complaints about the recipe builder. Alex basically unstickied it and said there were no plans to implement any fixes at this time.

    I've always had better luck using the old recipe builder https://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator and adding items one at a time.
  • eatyogarun
    eatyogarun Posts: 59 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    There was a very long stickied thread in the Suggestions/Feedback forum full of complaints about the recipe builder. Alex basically unstickied it and said there were no plans to implement any fixes at this time.

    And they expect people to upgrade to premium?


  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    fitoverfortymom wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    The trick for that one is to log .33 servings of 3 cloves -- the 3 cloves serving size has correct nutritional data.

    The real trick is to weigh the garlic on a food scale and log the precise number of grams used.

    Cooking for one most of the time, so I'm usually only using one or two cloves, and they generally go straight into a pan that's already got hot oil in it. It's really not worth dirtying another container or risking moving a hot pan to the scales. The difference between the calories assuming all cloves are average (3 g., according to USDA) and actually weighing them is lost in rounding errors throughout the day. Even if I didn't bother logging them at all, and used two cloves that were twice as big as USDA thinks an average clove is, I'll have missed 16 calories.
  • bluesheeponahill
    bluesheeponahill Posts: 169 Member
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    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!


    haha I have seen this too, and gone, WTAF?
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    claireychn074 wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Watch out for the infamous garlic too. Has several hundred calories for one clove!

    The trick for that one is to log .33 servings of 3 cloves -- the 3 cloves serving size has correct nutritional data.

    There’s actually a garlic figure of something like 840 calories for one clove (I may have slightly exaggerated that!). Think someone added in an extra digit and left it, so even weighing your garlic won’t work with that one! 🤣

    If you weighed it, why would you use a per-piece serving size instead of a mass serving size?

    The entry I use has a variety of serving size options, including 100 g, 1 clove, 3 cloves, and various volume measurements. For some reason, the 1 clove data is bad (hundreds of calories), but the data for the 3 clove serving size and the 100 g serving size are correct. So you could either use the 3 clove serving size, and adjust the portion (.33 if you used one clove, .67 if you used two, etc.), or you could weight it and use the 100 g serving size and adjust the portion (.07 if the amount you used was 7 grams).

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