Database Calorie accuracy

mjcpeters wrote: »

I'm new to this and curious about the accuracy of the calories in the Database. I notice several different entries all with different amounts, many are even verified yet different.
What really made me question this is today my CHEAT was a Detroit Style Coney Island and the ones I found in the database said they were in the low to mid 300 range. Yet I feel that perhaps that should have been quite a bit more. And when I looked up French Fries I found every number imaginable, I could eat all day long and just pick the lowest number.

A few things here...

Something like "Detroit Style Coney Island" and other restaurant type of foods are going to have to be your best educated guess because it'll depend on the establishment and how they make it. "French Fries" for example is pretty broad and generic and it's going to vary how each establishment makes them...their size...how much oil, etc. There is no universal "French Fry".

The same goes for looking something up like "lasagna"...it's just some random persons lasagna they made and you have no clue what ingredients were used or the quantity. It's a shot in the dark. If you're doing something like that you're better off using the recipe builder to input your own recipe for those types of things. If you're eating at a restaurant that's local and doesn't have nutritional information you just have to find something similar in the database and go with your gut. After a bit you kind of get to know what calorie counts are reasonable and which are completely ficticious.

Also, as mentioned the database is crowdsourced from other users so there is an element of human entry...something being entered wrong and/or entries being incomplete. For example, someone may have made an entry for X and only input the calories but didn't bother with inputting any or all of the micro-nutrition like carbs, protein, and fats.

Also consider that this is an international site so some entries will have been made by people from other countries for which the nutritional information may vary somewhat from the same US product...this is often a serving size difference and/or some nutritional information may be missing because it isn't required on food labels in that country. You also have to consider that companies do change their recipes and formulas from time to time which may not have a huge impact, but it can change the total calories and other nutrients...so you could be looking at an older entry for something and not know it...or a newer entry for something and not know it. Nutritional labels and restaurant nutrition are also allowed a degree of error since "calories" aren't an exact science and no particular piece of food is going to be exactly the same as the next in composition...or weights may be off slightly...rounding, etc.

When it comes down to it you need to input the actual ingredients individually, either in your diary or in the recipe builder. I eat scrambled eggs pretty much every morning. I don't look in the database for "scrambled eggs" because any one person is going to make those different, use more or less oil, add cheese, etc. I enter "Kirkland eggs 2" (because that's where my eggs are from and I can verify nutrition on the label). Then I enter the amount of oil I use. Then I enter any cheese I put on, etc. Don't use generic entries or at least avoid using them as much as possible for the most accurate representation of your calorie intake.

In summary, this isn't an exact science and you do the best you can do with the tools you have. As you go along you become more educated and things that are amiss will appear so more readily.

And yes, there’s a lot of incorrect entries, either through fumble fingers or not understanding how to enter, but, since I particularly find them in the sweets area, I suspect a lot are either self delusion, or trying to convince a third person that someone is staying “within” their calorie goal.