Nutrition facts off on adding recipes from a book

angelexperiment
angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I added on my recipes for this week all the facts like calories seem to be way over about 30 to 100 calories over the value set on the recipe in book this includes fats and carbs. Should I not bother logging it that way since every item is over the calories and carbs so it’s not a true value of what I’m actually eating? Do I make a notation to self on note area? Or just do a quick add rest of week with correct calories? I was trying to get a correct cab count for each day but seems like that’s not going to happen unless I sit here and do the math myself.

Replies

  • serindipte
    serindipte Posts: 1,557 Member
    edited February 2020
    I use the recipe builder in MFP and add each ingredient by weight. I then use the final weight of the product in grams as the "Number of servings". Then I can weigh out my serving, enter the grams how many servings I've had and it's accurate on the calorie count.

    ETA: The only math on this method is to subtract the weight of the dish from the final weight (So I'm only using the food weight as number of servings). MFP does the rest.
  • maureenkhilde
    maureenkhilde Posts: 850 Member
    Did you remember to add in how many servings it was for? When adding the ingredients, how sure are you that the ones you grabbed were correct?
    Remember many of the food items/ingredients on the database are user entered so they may not be accurate. Example I often see as the reminder is one of the garlic ones will show 8,000 calories I think it is.
    Did you weigh your solid ingredients?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    I have several cookbooks that have calorie counts for the recipes. When I use the Recipe Builder to add them to MFP, it's not uncommon for them to have slightly different calorie counts. This can be due to various factors -- the cookbook author may have incorrect information, the cookbook author may be using different assumptions as to the amounts of ingredients (for example, an author may think "one bunch of kale" is 8 cups and I might be assuming it's 10 cups), or I may have incorrect information (the Recipe Builder is notorious for pulling incorrect database entries and requires careful double-checking).

    It's really up to you to decide which you trust more -- the cookbook or the Recipe Builder. Because of my habits around logging and double-checking, I choose to trust the recipes I've created.
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
    @maureenkhilde yes I double checked every entry and I put in servings and all that I think that probably it’s pulling from the database and making som calories off. I had already made all these meals this week so no going back and weighing everything. But I think next time I do it I’ll have to invest that extra time 😒. I just made the recipe accordingly to the ingredients. It’s a bit tedious I’ll have to try better next time to log things I actually used into the database rather than a general guess from the database I know that does make the difference. But just doing all the recipes took me almost 4 hours. And prepping took 4 hours so this is pretty involved. I think next week when you do it I will weigh everything write out actual ingredients and put it into the recipe I’ll get a better more accurate findings.
  • SmallMimi
    SmallMimi Posts: 541 Member
    Did you double check that the correct ingredient, quantities, etc. were selected by the recipe builder? It is not always accurate in the products selected and may not match the quantities correctly. I find if I manually enter, then double check the ingredients for an exact match to what I actually use, I have a better outcome for matching the recipe and calories.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    i find many recipes differ because they may use a specific brands and you may have access to different ones - so calorie counts differ; or they use generic measurements like 1cup whereas you could weight it and have an actual oz/g weight
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
    Yea I was pretty surprised bc somethings were like 300 in the book or 230 and after I build it in the recipe builder it’s like 4/500 calories I was like wth lmao
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,881 Member
    SmallMimi wrote: »
    Did you double check that the correct ingredient, quantities, etc. were selected by the recipe builder? It is not always accurate in the products selected and may not match the quantities correctly. I find if I manually enter, then double check the ingredients for an exact match to what I actually use, I have a better outcome for matching the recipe and calories.

    I have never had anything close to 100% accuracy when using the recipe importer, even when I tweak line items so that they match entries I know are in the MFP database.

    Due to that, it's easier for me to be accurate when using the Old Recipe Calculator https://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator and entering things one at a time.
  • angelexperiment
    angelexperiment Posts: 1,917 Member
    Oh I’ll try that

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