Food database

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Alveratta
Alveratta Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Is there a nutrition database or do I need to add everything myself?

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  • Dreamyriver
    Dreamyriver Posts: 91 Member
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    Alveratta wrote: »
    Is there a nutrition database or do I need to add everything myself?

    Hi Alveratta,

    There is a nutrition database, but most if it is user-entered, so if you're just starting off it's a good idea to double-check any items you select, either against the packaging or against your country's nutritional standards (e.g. USDA in the US, or AUSNUT in Australia - I don't know any of the others :) ).

    How Do I add food to MFP diary

    How do I log a food that isn't in the database

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,966 Member
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    Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries and system entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. To find system entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and plug that into MFP.

    For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list is the U.S. food database. The exact names of the foods in that database, such as for "apples, raw", is "09003, Apples, raw, with skin (Includes foods for USDA's Food Distribution Program)" You can paste that search in the myfitnesspal database and find a listing that exactly matches.
  • ellenoneal1027
    ellenoneal1027 Posts: 18 Member
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    Frankly, I think it’s past time MFP cleans up and overhauls the food database. It is simply not even reliable enough to use with any assurance. You can type in a good item and get multiple entries for that item with differences in calories from 100 to 400 calories and macros.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,015 Member
    edited January 2019
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    healthymom1027 wrote: »
    Frankly, I think it’s past time MFP cleans up and overhauls the food database. It is simply not even reliable enough to use with any assurance. You can type in a good item and get multiple entries for that item with differences in calories from 100 to 400 calories and macros.

    True.

    Once you find good ones and use them, they will then appear in your Recents and Frequent lists on the Add Food screen, so at least you really only have to do it one time per item. In addition, if you add it yourself to the database it will be in your MY FOODS and easy to find/search.

    If we want the option to enter foods the way we want them, this is the trade-off.

    In the early days of MFP all the new foods got shared by default and that's how the database was sourced and why Google sent millions of people to this site. Just about any item typed into a browser will pull up MFP with a search.

    Now at least we have to purposefully decide to share them to the database.

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