Why can't we add in more serving sizes?

T4rbh
T4rbh Posts: 7 Member
edited November 2023 in MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions
Checked my calorie goal for the day and I'm under, so snack time! Checked the nutrition info on a bag of dry roasted peanuts, and the recommended serving size - 25g - will 'cost' me 160g, which I can afford - great!

So I measure the amount out and scan the bag, branded with an Irish supermarket's name. Ireland has had the metric system since shortly after I was born. I grew up with it. But the portion size isn't there - "1 oz" is the smallest serving, presumably because some muppet uploaded the barcode years ago (or in their defence, it's possible they're also sold in the UK, who still inexplicably use the metric system). So I have to open a calculator and work out that 25g is around 0.88 ounces.

1) I have no option to add in a different serving size - why not? It should be easy enough, surely, to code in an "Add serving size" option, with dropdown lists, that would then do any calculations automatically?

2) Actually, why not just code in the common serving sizes by default? Someone adds a new food and puts in 1oz as the serving size - the app should be capable of doing the maths and working out that if 1oz of a food is 50kcal then 1g of the same food is 50kcal divided by 28.35!

Ideally you'd eliminate weird-*kitten* serving sizes, such as "cups" for solids like carrots or other chopped veg, but baby steps...

Answers

  • durden
    durden Posts: 3,564 MFP Staff
    edited February 2022
    Totally hear you and agree that these would be good changes. If they were as easy to implement as you suggested, this would have been done a long time ago. Unfortunately that is not the case at all, and so the effort to enact these sort of changes is on-going.

    Just to be crystal clear; Available serving sizes are determined when a food item is created. Most of the items in our database are user created, and so if a particular food item has weird/incorrect serving sizes... Well, that's why. There is a valuable compromise in letting users create any food they want in the database, versus relying on a small team of people to create an entire database of accurate (and keep in mind there are regional differences in foods so this isn't easy) food items that are relevant to the entire world.

    Personally, I would rather have a more complete and accessible database that can be corrected and addd to than have a tiny database of foods that are accurate, but likely not relevant to the vast majority of users and very incomplete. Just my two cents.
  • T4rbh
    T4rbh Posts: 7 Member
    Thanks for the reply, durden.

    Yes, I get the issue with user-generated data, and understand.

    I still believe it's possible that if a user goes to enter a food in a frequently used measure, such as grams or ounces, it should be relatively painless to then also offer the option of alternate quantities, with the conversions already worked out. E.g., someone enters 1 ounce or 1 oz. as the quantity, MFP should be able to offer 1g or 1 gram as an alternate. Ideally the quantity to be used could be offered in a dropdown.

    That obviously breaks down where someone ignores defaults and types in "1 container" for their tube of pringles, but again, baby steps :-)
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