USDA Nutrient Database disappearing next week

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lynn_glenmont
lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,981 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Just noticed this announcement on the USDA NDB site:

As of October 1, 2019, this website (https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/) will no longer be available and users will be automatically redirected to FoodData Central, USDA’s new integrated, research-focused food and nutrient data system.


Argh. I hate change in tools I use all the time when there are no apparent gains in functionality, features, etc. Just having to relearn how to use it, and so far all I see is loss of functionality. No predictive search strings as you type, no side-by-side displays of data for different serving units. And if I'm understanding the definitions of the data sources, the USDA is no longer going to be providing any future data based on its own analysis -- just USDA legacy data and other sources for which it provides no indication of who funds it.

I guess this is just a rant, but if anybody who has looked at the FoodData Central has found any neat new features that will ease the pain of transition, please speak up. : :'(
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Replies

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,906 Member
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    I share your pain :'(

    The new system was up for a few hours last week and I Did Not Like It, especially the loss of the predictive search strings.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,467 Member
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    Crazy hard
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
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    That's gonna mess with the "Most Helpful Posts" on this site, too.

    I don't use the USDA nutrition site very often, and I actually didn't like the predictive search, I felt like the results were too variable and I didn't know where all those choices came from, sort of like on MFP. All those brand names and various results for the same products that couldn't possibly be correct since the manufacturers change their formulations.

    I guess my life is pretty simple, all the foods I eat regularly are entered as raw whole foods and now they're all in my personal lists so I doubt this will affect me.

    I'll give you both hugs anyway. Sorry if you aren't huggy people. :lol:
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,906 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    That's gonna mess with the "Most Helpful Posts" on this site, too.

    I don't use the USDA nutrition site very often, and I actually didn't like the predictive search, I felt like the results were too variable and I didn't know where all those choices came from, sort of like on MFP. All those brand names and various results for the same products that couldn't possibly be correct since the manufacturers change their formulations.

    I guess my life is pretty simple, all the foods I eat regularly are entered as raw whole foods and now they're all in my personal lists so I doubt this will affect me.

    I'll give you both hugs anyway. Sorry if you aren't huggy people. :lol:

    I like hugs :)

    It's a little late for this tip, but you could have used the Standard Reference database filter to exclude all manufacturers. I only used this database for whole foods - for branded foods I searched MFP and verified against the label.

    d3acafd2b6a986edd2a18e566c6abd08.png

    My whole foods are in my Recents too, but with desktop, it was faster to search the USDA database and plug that syntax into MFP then to search Recents page by page.

    I think the app has better search(?)
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
    edited September 2019
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    @kshama2001

    now you tell me. :neutral: I really don't remember, I haven't been on USDA for years.

    Thanks! I know who to tag when I need to use the new one.
  • nighthawk584
    nighthawk584 Posts: 1,995 Member
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    anytime the government changes something, it all goes to *kitten*!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,906 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    @kshama2001

    now you tell me. :neutral: I really don't remember, I haven't been on USDA for years.

    Thanks! I know who to tag when I need to use the new one.

    I hate change and predict all I'll be doing is complaining for at least all of October :p
  • OldHobo
    OldHobo Posts: 647 Member
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    My food diary is on Cronometer and the items I log most usually come from the NCCDB so it probably won't have any effect on me in the short run. Still, I think it's yet another shameful example of abandoning a public service.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,981 Member
    edited September 2019
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    That's gonna mess with the "Most Helpful Posts" on this site, too.

    I don't use the USDA nutrition site very often, and I actually didn't like the predictive search, I felt like the results were too variable and I didn't know where all those choices came from, sort of like on MFP. All those brand names and various results for the same products that couldn't possibly be correct since the manufacturers change their formulations.

    I guess my life is pretty simple, all the foods I eat regularly are entered as raw whole foods and now they're all in my personal lists so I doubt this will affect me.

    I'll give you both hugs anyway. Sorry if you aren't huggy people. :lol:

    This is obviously too late to do you much good, but I generally used the USDA NDB site limiting it to what they called the "standard" database, which seemed to be only the generic, commodity-style USDA lab-generated info (e.g., bananas, raw; chicken, thighs, meat only, roasted; etc.).

    ETA: Thanks for the hug. Backatchya.

    EATA: I see @kshama2001 beat me to it on the "standard" tip.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,981 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    @kshama2001

    now you tell me. :neutral: I really don't remember, I haven't been on USDA for years.

    Thanks! I know who to tag when I need to use the new one.

    I hate change and predict all I'll be doing is complaining for at least all of October :p

    tenor.gif

    Oh! I should have asked for comforting animal gifs instead of possible nonexistent upsides to the new FoodData Central website.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,981 Member
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    OldHobo wrote: »
    My food diary is on Cronometer and the items I log most usually come from the NCCDB so it probably won't have any effect on me in the short run. Still, I think it's yet another shameful example of abandoning a public service.

    Thanks. It looks like the NCCDB requires you to license it, which I assume is for businesses? Is it available to individual consumers?
  • OldHobo
    OldHobo Posts: 647 Member
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    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    OldHobo wrote: »
    My food diary is on Cronometer and the items I log most usually come from the NCCDB so it probably won't have any effect on me in the short run. Still, I think it's yet another shameful example of abandoning a public service.

    Thanks. It looks like the NCCDB requires you to license it, which I assume is for businesses? Is it available to individual consumers?

    I access it through https://cronometer.com/ which is is a free to use diet and exercise nutrition and calorie tracker very similar to MFP. Like MFP you can pay a monthly subscription to get some enhanced features. I prefer the available databases, food diary, and recipe functions in Crono but MFP has a much more active social component. More about the databases used by Cronometer here.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,981 Member
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    OldHobo wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    OldHobo wrote: »
    My food diary is on Cronometer and the items I log most usually come from the NCCDB so it probably won't have any effect on me in the short run. Still, I think it's yet another shameful example of abandoning a public service.

    Thanks. It looks like the NCCDB requires you to license it, which I assume is for businesses? Is it available to individual consumers?

    I access it through https://cronometer.com/ which is is a free to use diet and exercise nutrition and calorie tracker very similar to MFP. Like MFP you can pay a monthly subscription to get some enhanced features. I prefer the available databases, food diary, and recipe functions in Crono but MFP has a much more active social component. More about the databases used by Cronometer here.

    Thank you.
  • Athijade
    Athijade Posts: 3,247 Member
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    nighthawk584 wrote: »
    anytime the government changes something, it all goes to *kitten*!

    Agreed... and I work for a government entity. Every time they decide to change or upgrade something, you better believe it will be a slightly worse version of what is currently in use. Dealing with it now.
  • Rhumax67
    Rhumax67 Posts: 162 Member
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    I've never used it but if you think the change is bad, why not give a call, email or otherwise contact your congressman - might help, can't hurt
  • dulinh
    dulinh Posts: 99 Member
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    The new site sucks :( I use the old site all the time so that I can find the correct MFP database entries.

    I searched for 'lentils' and initially got over 900 results. I narrowed to just SR legacy and got 9 which is manageable.
    Next I tried 'chicken' with just the SR legacy selected... 392 results. Who has time for that looking through that list?

    I wonder if MFP would please identify the uploaded USDA results in some way to make it easier to search right in MFP. Either bold them, italize, highlight... whatever. Something.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
    edited September 2019
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    dulinh wrote: »
    The new site sucks :( I use the old site all the time so that I can find the correct MFP database entries.

    I searched for 'lentils' and initially got over 900 results. I narrowed to just SR legacy and got 9 which is manageable.
    Next I tried 'chicken' with just the SR legacy selected... 392 results. Who has time for that looking through that list?

    I wonder if MFP would please identify the uploaded USDA results in some way to make it easier to search right in MFP. Either bold them, italize, highlight... whatever. Something.

    From your fingers to God's ear.

    I've been making this request for over ten years. I hope you asking for it will be more productive. They used to have an asterisk in use for non-MFP entered foods, but on one of the genius Updates, they took that away. Really made the database nearly worthless to me. That's when I started entering ALL my own food - now at least I know mine are correct. A separate Admin-entered database would be so smart.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,906 Member
    edited September 2019
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    dulinh wrote: »
    The new site sucks :( I use the old site all the time so that I can find the correct MFP database entries.

    I searched for 'lentils' and initially got over 900 results. I narrowed to just SR legacy and got 9 which is manageable.
    Next I tried 'chicken' with just the SR legacy selected... 392 results. Who has time for that looking through that list?

    I wonder if MFP would please identify the uploaded USDA results in some way to make it easier to search right in MFP. Either bold them, italize, highlight... whatever. Something.

    @Alex as you know, right now both the entries MFP pulled from the USDA database and user-created entries that are "Verified" have the green check marks.

    With the old USDA database going away and the new one not being as user friendly (see above), it would be really helpful if there was something to differentiate the entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. (To clarify - not entries that say USDA, as these are user-created.)

    c5d5b517c9a526eb953dd4fd121667040b3512959c8de616ec8f2f01190d3540.jpg

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