Question about calories and macros accuracy

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johnmagister
johnmagister Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Hello guys,

My name is John, and I am a new member on MyFitnessPal.

I have a question;

1. Does MyFitnessPal calculate the calories and macros correctly? I have a book with healthy recipes, including the calorie estimation and the macros. However, I imported some of the book's recipes on MyFitnessPal, and there is a discrepancy with calories and macros calculation. For example, the book shows 500 calories for a meal, and then MyFitnessPal calculates 900 calories for the same meal. Something similar happens with the macros as well. How is that possible? Am I doing something wrong? I would appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Most MFP database entries have been created by your fellow users and many of them are inaccurate. You'll want to double-check the entries used in your recipe creation to ensure they're accurate.

    There is also a chance that your book isn't accurate. I have multiple cookbooks that have calorie information and I've noticed that a few of the cookbooks are way off on the calories when compared when I build the recipe (with entries that I've verified for accuracy). I would say that generally, though, cookbooks are more accurate than random MFP entries.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    Are you entering the recipes from your recipe book into the recipe builder, or just looking for a similarly named dish?

    For example, when I search for "Summer Squash Casserole", I find MFP entries ranging from 91 calories to 500 calories per serving. But when I used the recipe builder and looked up each of the ingredients separately, my recipe came out to 112 calories per serving.

    Also, whenever I search for an ingredient with a bar code (almond milk, nutritional yeast), I always quickly doublecheck the calorie count for the MFP item against the package. Sometimes there are multiple MFP entries for the same product with slightly different calorie counts because different users may have entered them in error or may be in different countries where the serving size is different.

    MFP does include the USDA food database for things like produce and meat products, so when I use an ingredient in a recipe that doesn't have a bar code, I always include "USDA" in my search (e.g., "yellow squash USDA", "chicken breast USDA" etc).
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,871 Member
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    johnmagister wrote: »
    Hello guys,

    My name is John, and I am a new member on MyFitnessPal.

    I have a question;

    1. Does MyFitnessPal calculate the calories and macros correctly? I have a book with healthy recipes, including the calorie estimation and the macros. However, I imported some of the book's recipes on MyFitnessPal, and there is a discrepancy with calories and macros calculation. For example, the book shows 500 calories for a meal, and then MyFitnessPal calculates 900 calories for the same meal. Something similar happens with the macros as well. How is that possible? Am I doing something wrong? I would appreciate any advice. Thank you!

    MFP doesn't calculate anything. The calories and macros for items in the database are for the most part crowdsourced from users using nutrition labels and other sources. MFP isn't doing any calculation, it's just using whatever information is present on the database entry being used.

    Given the element of human error, there are numerous database entries that are just plain bad...plenty are good, but there are many bad entries so when you're importing or even selecting individual things from the database you need to vet those against nutrition labels or other sources like the USDA database.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
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    That's a big difference. If you post a link to it here, one of us might figure out what's going on.

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