Question-lemon & boiling water.

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joliver2509
joliver2509 Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi
I'm new to the app & using it to monitor vitamins n mineral intake after major surgery.
Just logged a quarter of lemon and hot water and it hasn't registered as any vitamins?
Lemon is packed with vitamin c and surely it should be logged?

Advice welcomed.
Thanks.

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,156 Member
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    The food database is crowdsourced, which means entries can be incomplete or wrong.
    Furthermore, I'm not sure how you could even accurately determine the nutritional value of something like lemon in boiling water, unless there is a company out there selling it commercially, with a nutritional label?
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
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    Things like vitamins are not in the database. I have a wedge of lemon w my tea every morning. It gives me--1 cal, 1 carb. That'a about as good as it gets. Also, not completely sure, but doesn't boiling destroy Vit C ?
  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,634 Member
    edited May 2023
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    joliver2509 wrote: »
    Hi
    I'm new to the app & using it to monitor vitamins n mineral intake after major surgery.
    Just logged a quarter of lemon and hot water and it hasn't registered as any vitamins?
    Lemon is packed with vitamin c and surely it should be logged?

    Advice welcomed.
    Thanks.

    More than likely, the nutrients you would get from drinking water that had a quarter of a lemon boiled in it would be negligible at best, most likely pretty much zero. If you ate the quarter of a lemon, then yes, you would get some vitamin c from it. Try logging in cronometer instead of here if you're really interested in tracking nutrient intake.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,550 Member
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    Just wondering…..why?

    This kinda smacks of the Apple Cider Vinegar “diet”. You’re not using this as a diet plan, are you?
  • paints5555
    paints5555 Posts: 1,229 Member
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    Vitamin C is one of the vitamins that is easily destroyed by heat. So if you are boiling it, there's probably not much left in the end.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,425 Member
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    Also, apart from being crowd-sourced the food database on MFP is also international. And the nutritional labels in many countries are very different, with different requirements on what's on them.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,949 Member
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    joliver2509 wrote: »
    Hi
    I'm new to the app & using it to monitor vitamins n mineral intake after major surgery.
    Just logged a quarter of lemon and hot water and it hasn't registered as any vitamins?
    Lemon is packed with vitamin c and surely it should be logged?

    Advice welcomed.
    Thanks.

    Yeah, heat will effect Vitamin C. Not sure what your eating post surgery but you'll be getting plenty of vitamin C in most, if not all plant food you consume and if it's just water your consuming for a short time, then you can always supplement Vit. C. Cheers.
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 879 Member
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    MFP is not an app meant (or appropriate) to track vitamins/minerals/micronutrients. It's meant to use for calorie management. That's it.
    Something like Chronometer may be a more appropriate tool for you or ask your doctor for a recommended way to track this stuff if you need to.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    joliver2509 wrote: »
    Hi
    I'm new to the app & using it to monitor vitamins n mineral intake after major surgery.
    Just logged a quarter of lemon and hot water and it hasn't registered as any vitamins?
    Lemon is packed with vitamin c and surely it should be logged?

    Advice welcomed.
    Thanks.

    MFP is an outstanding tool for calorie counting and macro-nutrient tracking as that is what it was created for. It isn't particularly good for micro-nutrition. As has been mentioned, the database is crowdsourced and most of the information that gets populated is from food labels. Only a select few vitamins and minerals are required by law to be put on food labels...so if it isn't on a label it's not going to get populated. Even if it is available, many entries may have missing data because that user didn't find it particularly important for them to enter...to that end, you have to vet the entries you select.

    At any rate, a wedge of lemon is going to provide somewhere around 5% of the RDA.

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