Green check mark

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melfransm
melfransm Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
What does the green check mark mean beside certain foods?

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  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    It means that any random user clicked the "verified" button, which doesn't really mean a thing.. 😄
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
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    I think I understand this now, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong...

    It means that on the website (not an app function) people have upvoted the nutrition information as being accurate. I'm not sure how many votes it takes to get the check. And, in my experience, those are only slightly more likely to be correct, so always verify the numbers the first time you use a food.
  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
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    I've seen a great number of foods with the green checkmark that have erroneous nutritional information. I don't pay much attention to the check marks anymore.
  • ElReyDelMundo365
    ElReyDelMundo365 Posts: 14 Member
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    I think it just means that someone filled out all the optional information when entering the food. It doesnt even mean the info is right, just that every field has a numerical value entered.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    The green check mark means a certain number of users clicked "yes" when they saw the question "Is this data accurate?" in the nutrition info. I don't remember how many, and right now the Help area doesn't seem to be working for me.

    There is a better chance the green check marks are correct, but it's still no guarantee, especially if you are tracking more than calories and macros.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,002 Member
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    ElReyDelMundo365 wrote: »
    I think it just means that someone filled out all the optional information when entering the food. It doesnt even mean the info is right, just that every field has a numerical value entered.

    No. It means that users upvoted the item. It has nothing to do with actual accuracy or with completed fields.


    It used to be pretty easy to find the admin-entered foods and a lot of us upvoted them hoping to make it easier, but now it's a free for all and even whole foods that are really poorly entered can be green-checked.

    So, vet every entry before you use it by looking at a reliable food database like the USDA https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/. Once you use it - it will appear in your "recents" list, so it pays to get it right the first time, since you can't delete things from the "recents" list.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,951 Member
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    Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries with sufficient upvotes and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database (no upvotes needed). To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.

    The USDA just changed the platform for their database and it is unfortunately a little more difficult to use. In order to find the entry I wanted for chicken I had to include a bunch of keywords. "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"

    Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.

    For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    The green check mark means a certain number of users clicked "yes" when they saw the question "Is this data accurate?" in the nutrition info. I don't remember how many, and right now the Help area doesn't seem to be working for me.

    There is a better chance the green check marks are correct, but it's still no guarantee, especially if you are tracking more than calories and macros.

    Especially if someone entered the correct information a few years ago & the company then decided to reformulate the recipe changing the nutritional information.

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