Database accuracy

j1mandel
j1mandel Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I find that calories and portion size vary wildly and, frankly, I don't trust many of the entries. Does MFP ever verify and correct entries? Or is it the Wild West?

Replies

  • DomesticKat
    DomesticKat Posts: 565 Member
    The database is entirely user generated. You should verify entries you use either with the package label or with the USDA food database, after weighing and measuring yourself of course. Don't trust any homemade entries. Use the recipe builder instead. There are verified entries, but even those can be outdated and wrong.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    The database is a mess. I have all but abandoned it unless I have confirmed an entry from the package or USDA. It should be parsed just like the "Recent" listings. Not accepted and used in the last month/year? Strike it off. It'll only get worse.
  • stutba
    stutba Posts: 152 Member
    Agreed. You can search an item and find at least 3 different calorie counts.
    It would be nice if an option to flag for deletion or correction.
  • zeejane03
    zeejane03 Posts: 993 Member
    I enjoy MFP for the forums but track my food on another site, which is much more accurate.
  • j1mandel
    j1mandel Posts: 4 Member
    ZeeJane03: What website/app do you use please?
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    DomesticKat wrote: »
    The database is entirely user generated. You should verify entries you use either with the package label or with the USDA food database, after weighing and measuring yourself of course. Don't trust any homemade entries. Use the recipe builder instead. There are verified entries, but even those can be outdated and wrong.

    Correction - there are plenty of admin-created entries that are pulled from the USDA database. You may still need to troubleshoot these as the 1 g entries are prone to errors, but these are easy to spot as they give values 100 times greater than they should be.

    Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.

    For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP.

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