Poly and mono unsaturated fats

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Zoey1984
Zoey1984 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Ok, so I read that rating poly and mono unsaturated fats is good for you. So why does my food diary tracker say I can’t have any?? But apparently I should be eating saturated fats? So confused

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,382 Member
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    I believe it's that there are no specific numerical goals set for mono & poly fats (by USDA/WHO etc.). The MFP goals would make more sense if they said "N/A" instead of zero. You can reset them to something else yourself, if you'd like. It's generally considered a good thing to eat relatively more of those, and relatively less saturated fat.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,986 Member
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    This is good practice for learning to ignore the red numbers. In addition to the MFP bug of setting the goal to "zero" when there is no specific goal to assign, it also treats all goals as maxima instead of minima, and people think they're doing something wrong (because red numbers) if they go over their protein goal or their vitamin C goal, for example. Plus, if you hit your goal exactly, MFP puts you in the red for doing that, as well, which encourages people to think they should be coming in under their calorie goal all the time.

    Figure out your goals, decide whether each one is a maximum, minimum, or precise target to hit as close as possible, and ignore the red and green numbers.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    Yep, it used to be N/A as there is no nationally or internationally defined goal or limit, then in an update it got whoopsied to "0" and there it remains. :drinker:
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    edited June 2019
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    In addition, poly and mono unsaturated fats are not required to be listed on the label, just trans and saturated, so trying to track those is next to impossible.

    https://www.medallionlabs.com/blog/nutrition-labels-whats-required-optional/

    eta - in the US, I can't say what other countries require (often a lot more info)
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    Yep, it used to be N/A as there is no nationally or internationally defined goal or limit, then in an update it got whoopsied to "0" and there it remains. :drinker:

    I'm utterly annoyed by this decision on MFP's part. Someone is going to end up hurting themselves trying to stay at zero on those fats one day.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    diannethegeek wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Yep, it used to be N/A as there is no nationally or internationally defined goal or limit, then in an update it got whoopsied to "0" and there it remains. :drinker:

    I'm utterly annoyed by this decision on MFP's part. Someone is going to end up hurting themselves trying to stay at zero on those fats one day.

    You would think if they were going to fix anything, it would be display issues in the food diary, especially ones I would think are fairly easy to fix.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Zoey1984 wrote: »
    Ok, so I read that rating poly and mono unsaturated fats is good for you. So why does my food diary tracker say I can’t have any?? But apparently I should be eating saturated fats? So confused

    The target for saturated fat is an upper limit. There is not currently any formal recommendation for mono and poly fats and thus none given on MFP. It used to say N/A.

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