a way to track fruits and veggie intake per day?

larovers
larovers Posts: 100
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone! I love MFP so much, best food database and iphone app out there. The only thing I wish is that they had a way to track certain things like servings of fruits and veggies per day as sometimes I need a friendly reminder to track things like this (this is what I liked about Weight watchers but I would rather do MFP for free as WW was not working as well for me as MFP does).....anybody have any suggestions on how they track their servings per day?

Replies

  • QuincyBella
    QuincyBella Posts: 6 Member
    I was thinking this exact thing earlier, it would be a great addition. It would be useful if we could track fibre intake too.
  • larovers
    larovers Posts: 100
    you can see your fiber intake on the macros daily summary anytime you want. I just want a way to track fruits/veggies intake like I can track water. I would like a way to see "oh, I only ate 3 servings of fruits/veggies today....I need to eat more" . I know you on Spark people you can add these type of thing to track however I do not like the Spark people format and they do not have a good food database.
  • theghouse
    theghouse Posts: 9
    The benefit of using a real calorie counting system is also the downfall. Calorie counting is very precise and there are no quick categories or free foods like fruits and veggies in other systems. While it makes this kind of system the most accurate, it also makes it the most tedious to input the correct items and amounts on your log.
  • hludwig980
    hludwig980 Posts: 102 Member
    When it comes to fruits and veggies I have a question. When weighing those, how many ounces are considered a serving? There is very little I do my volume and feel its more accurate if I weigh my food. I typically do 3-4 ounces for a serving, but I'm not sure if that is accurate. When someone says one small this or one medium that I feel likes its really open ended.l
  • larovers
    larovers Posts: 100
    The benefit of using a real calorie counting system is also the downfall. Calorie counting is very precise and there are no quick categories or free foods like fruits and veggies in other systems. While it makes this kind of system the most accurate, it also makes it the most tedious to input the correct items and amounts on your log.

    I am not asking for a free category...I know fruits and veggies are not free on this system nor do I want them to be (stupidest thing about WW IMO is the free fruits and veggies...how misleading is that!)

    I just want a way to TRACK how many servings I am eating daily , like a check box or something so I do not forget to eat enough (which I often do as fruits and veggies are not my first choice).

    anybody have any ideas for this?
  • theghouse
    theghouse Posts: 9
    Can you not tell how many servings of fruits and veggies you have had by looking at your food diary and seeing strawberries or broccoli?

    I understand what you want, something like the glass of water counter, I'm just not sure why you need it when all of your fruits and veggies are displayed on your food diary.
  • larovers
    larovers Posts: 100
    sure I can see it no problem, I just still would love to have some type of tracker for it too...I am just one of those who needs extra reminders "eat your fruits and veggies".
    anybody who has been on weight watchers probably knows what I am talking about, the check boxes they have are GREAT (even though I do not like their system.
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
    This is one of the reasons I didn't make the transition from the WW tracker which uses the points system to MFP which uses a calorie based system. The WW tracker has a place to make sure you get all of your good health guidelines, which includes a minimum of each:

    2 dairy servings
    5 fruit/veggie servings
    1 healthy oil
    6 liquids

    This personally is easier for me. It helps ensure that you get your macros, but it's made a lot simpler with a lot less calculating...
  • clairelouwade
    clairelouwade Posts: 3 Member
    I liked to keep track of mine so I just added it into the notes section at the bottom. So each day it might say 1/5 or 5/5 etc.
  • QuincyBella
    QuincyBella Posts: 6 Member
    Can you not tell how many servings of fruits and veggies you have had by looking at your food diary and seeing strawberries or broccoli?

    I understand what you want, something like the glass of water counter, I'm just not sure why you need it when all of your fruits and veggies are displayed on your food diary.

    I think for me, it would be because it can be confusing to know what constitutes a "portion" and what does not. So if you were entering the correct amounts as part of a recipe you should get a more realistic account of how many portions of fruit and veg you have consumed. For instance, putting five button mushrooms into a pasta sauce wouldn't count as a full portion, but may count as a half. A way of keeping on top of how much you have really eaten would be handy.
  • larovers
    larovers Posts: 100
    you can do this on sparkpeople...but their website is just too much...I like the simplicity of MFP so much more however would be great to have a vegetable tracker, I hope the websites APP developers think of that sometime.
  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
    Hi everyone! I love MFP so much, best food database and iphone app out there. The only thing I wish is that they had a way to track certain things like servings of fruits and veggies per day as sometimes I need a friendly reminder to track things like this (this is what I liked about Weight watchers but I would rather do MFP for free as WW was not working as well for me as MFP does).....anybody have any suggestions on how they track their servings per day?

    I use the note section at the bottom of the food diary like this:

    5.4 (my morning blood sugar reading)
    Dairy-
    Freggies- (because I'm too lazy to type out both words)
    Oils-
    Vitamins taken

    Then whenever I update my food diary I make note of dairy/fruit/veggies so I can keep track of the servings.
  • whierd
    whierd Posts: 14,025 Member
    The benefit of using a real calorie counting system is also the downfall. Calorie counting is very precise and there are no quick categories or free foods like fruits and veggies in other systems. While it makes this kind of system the most accurate, it also makes it the most tedious to input the correct items and amounts on your log.

    How on earth is it tedious to input fruits and veggies? And how are they "free" in other systems? Just because they are different systems, doesn't mean you aren't putting the food in your body.
  • Grinb
    Grinb Posts: 123 Member
    You can edit and add the names of your meals like I added vitamins to mine, make you a category for fruit and for veggies :)
  • ShinyFuture
    ShinyFuture Posts: 314 Member
    OP, this would be a good one to post on the Website Suggestion/Feedback board as the people who run this site appear to check that alot more than the misc boards.
  • jonibc
    jonibc Posts: 104 Member
    You can edit and add the names of your meals like I added vitamins to mine, make you a category for fruit and for veggies :)


    Thanks for this info and this topic! I just edited my food diary and added two meal categories- Veg Servings and Fruit Servings. So I figure I'll use the quick add calories function to put in a 1 whenever I get a serving in. Perfect!

    BTW, from everything I've learned about nutrition, I think 5 combined servings of fruits and veggies are too few.
  • DNDChef
    DNDChef Posts: 1
    I agree, and would like to have this feature as well as it's not ALL about tracking just calories. If the USDA has recommended numbers for servings of various foods then a way to track you daily intake is indeed a useful tool.

    The tracker at this link does that. https://www.supertracker.usda.gov

    I like it but there is not easy way to menu plan or maintain a recipe database (just nutritional information) so I find my self using both Myfitnesspal and the USDA site.

    Seems to me that Myfitnespal should be able to add something similar.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    Hi everyone! I love MFP so much, best food database and iphone app out there. The only thing I wish is that they had a way to track certain things like servings of fruits and veggies per day as sometimes I need a friendly reminder to track things like this (this is what I liked about Weight watchers but I would rather do MFP for free as WW was not working as well for me as MFP does).....anybody have any suggestions on how they track their servings per day?
    I'm feeling pretty dense here, but maybe just open up your diary and see how many servings of fruits and vegetables you had? You will then know whether to have more or whether you've had whatever you want for the day.
  • megsmom2
    megsmom2 Posts: 2,362 Member
    I think a check-box option would be handy. For fruits or veggies, or did I take my vitamins today ...or whatever.
  • chuck27p
    chuck27p Posts: 2 Member
    I am looking for this functionality as well and would love it.
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,205 Member
    hludwig980 wrote: »
    When it comes to fruits and veggies I have a question. When weighing those, how many ounces are considered a serving? There is very little I do my volume and feel its more accurate if I weigh my food. I typically do 3-4 ounces for a serving, but I'm not sure if that is accurate. When someone says one small this or one medium that I feel likes its really open ended.l

    i look for the calories per gram and put it on a food scale
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    edited June 2023
    chuck27p wrote: »
    I am looking for this functionality as well and would love it.

    @chuck27p, this is a super old thread. (There's a special section here for posting feature requests. I'll try to remember to link it later when I'm on a device that makes that easier. The staff doesn't read all the posts here in the Community, usually just the feature requests.)

    Personally, I set a goal in grams for veggies/fruits. My personal daily minimum goal is 400g, my ideal target is 800g+.

    I figure 80g is a reasonable average serving, so that's 5-10 servings.

    Since I weigh most of my food (quicker as well as more accurate), it's easy for me to see in my diary where I am with my goal by scanning the log and rough adding in my head.

    That's not going to suit everyone, but it works fine for me.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    edited June 2023
    Here's the place to post if you want to suggest a new feature that MFP should add:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/feature-suggestions-and-ideas

    The MFP staff reads that area, sometime provides info about existing features that may've been overlooked, or will pass along workable suggestions to the MFP development team for consideration. Also, in that section, other MFP users can up-vote ideas if they agree with them, or explain workarounds that can be used currently, and things like that.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,739 Member
    edited June 2023
    @chuck27p Maybe as a workaround you change the name of one of the meals to Fruits/Veggies and just log those things there for a quick look see to how you're doing.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    Another workaround would be to add a new category to the section where you log things like waist and thigh measurements -- you can add new measurement categories yourself on the website (I don't know if there's a way to do this on the app). You would still have to manually add the number of fruit & veg servings every day, but MFP would generate graphs so you could see whether you were consistently meeting the target.
  • laurenthecarts
    laurenthecarts Posts: 41 Member
    jonibc wrote: »
    You can edit and add the names of your meals like I added vitamins to mine, make you a category for fruit and for veggies :)

    BTW, from everything I've learned about nutrition, I think 5 combined servings of fruits and veggies are too few.

    This is very true, different countries have different recommendations. 5 a day is basically what our government think our nation could 'cope with aiming for', I believe Canada is near double this, and I wanna say it goes up to 18 or something for some! (Portion sizes vary though).

    Mildly off topic, but I've always found it kinda interesting.

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