Discrepancy of calories counted

roycairns
roycairns Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all, have successfully lost 73lbs so far on a combination of diets and exercise and enjoying using your app to maintain weight and possibly lose more. A query however. Here in UK - fast food/bakery outlet Greggs has pasta salads which your app scans and produces a calorie count of 250+ but their packaging states 480… a big difference. You may need to alter your figures.

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,107 Member
    The food database is crowdsourced, MFP won't make any changes. You can edit the entry and save the item to My Foods, if you want.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,939 Member
    The food entries in the database are entered by users like yourself. The database is crowd-sourced.

    Even the bar coded ones need to be vetted against a label or a trusted food database. Here in the U.S. we can use the USDA for whole foods but things like pasta salad from a retailer would need to be vetted by you before you use it.

    If you can't find one already in the database that is close enough you can enter a new food into the database. There is always also the option to just use a percentage (which is what the person who entered it may have been doing.) Additionally, manufacturers change portion sizes and formulations (recipes) all the time. It's a bit of a challenge on things like this.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,586 Member
    Also, double check the packaging isn't for the whole container (or 2 servings) and the scan for 1 serving or 1/2 the container.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    roycairns wrote: »
    Hi all, have successfully lost 73lbs so far on a combination of diets and exercise and enjoying using your app to maintain weight and possibly lose more. A query however. Here in UK - fast food/bakery outlet Greggs has pasta salads which your app scans and produces a calorie count of 250+ but their packaging states 480… a big difference. You may need to alter your figures.

    You can update it, but make sure you're actually looking at what you think you're looking at. 480 on the package could possibly be for the entire package which may actually be two servings which would be pretty close (within 20 calories). It is also possible that the packaging label has changed since it was entered into the database so is no longer valid...but MFP doesn't populate the database, it is crowdsourced so you would have to update it yourself.

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