Conflicting Calorie Counts

I google x nutrition fact.. I browse a few reputable web sites and there always seems to be a very close consensus. Then I will either take an MPF estimate that is close or if I know the real nutrition facts and there is none on MFP I will create my own.

What the others said -- check Livestrong and also caloriecount.about.com -- when in doubt, I consult those, then compare with MFP and find the one closest. I will not pick the highest one I find, because as you said, some counts vary wildly... it continually baffles me how people enter so many duplicates in the database with mistaken counts and without double-checking first!

I noticed this today. Watermelon, 1/2 cup = 23 calories. Watermelon, 1 c = 23 calories. Watermelon, 2 c = 85 calories. Seriously? These were all values given for raw watermelon. (If there's another way to eat it, I don't want to know....)

Obviously, this is a low-cal food. But the same kind of variation shows up in a lot of items, not just the salmon as noted above. And when a food includes multiple ingredients (beef stew, for instance, or a cheese omlette, or coleslaw), it's totally the Wild West. Makes it really hard, sometimes, to plan your meal based on your target caloric intake for the day.

Checking other sources is a good idea, but one of the big draws (for me, anyway) of MFP has been that it was a quick and easy, one-stop app. Is there any way for the admins to clean up the database or clarify the difference between "Houlihan's" grilled cheese sandwich at 949 calories (!!) and the apparently generic grilled cheese sandwich listed at 160 calories (neat trick, since most sandwich-type breads list out at 80-120 calories a slice).

LYNCARR wrote: »

I noticed this today. Watermelon, 1/2 cup = 23 calories. Watermelon, 1 c = 23 calories. Watermelon, 2 c = 85 calories. Seriously? These were all values given for raw watermelon. (If there's another way to eat it, I don't want to know....)

Obviously, this is a low-cal food. But the same kind of variation shows up in a lot of items, not just the salmon as noted above. And when a food includes multiple ingredients (beef stew, for instance, or a cheese omlette, or coleslaw), it's totally the Wild West. Makes it really hard, sometimes, to plan your meal based on your target caloric intake for the day.

Checking other sources is a good idea, but one of the big draws (for me, anyway) of MFP has been that it was a quick and easy, one-stop app. Is there any way for the admins to clean up the database or clarify the difference between "Houlihan's" grilled cheese sandwich at 949 calories (!!) and the apparently generic grilled cheese sandwich listed at 160 calories (neat trick, since most sandwich-type breads list out at 80-120 calories a slice).

This thread is from 2012, not that the general premise is incorrect.

The database is crowd sourced. The plus is that it's comprehensive, so one rarely need add the food - a correct entry is usually in there. The minus is that it can be hard to find the correct one(s) amongst the nonsense.

For watermelon, use this one:



Why? It's the one that was loaded to MFP at MFP start up from the USDA database at the time. How do I know this? These usually have a default serving size in cups, but the drop-down (as here) will have not only cups but weights, volumes, sometimes size measurements, etc., i.e., different types of serving sizes, not just different units. Often (not always), these have a name only a bureaucrat could love ("Beans, black, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt", "Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average"). After a while, I got good at guessing what they'd likely be named, or close enough to find them quickly. YMMV.

For your very own cheese sandwich, add your bread, cheese, and whatever else individually. (Use the entries that match the labels.)

For a restaurant menu item, if it's a chain, look on their website for correct nutritional info, then find the matching entry on MFP. For a non-chain restaurant, use a similar menu item from a chain, or estimate the components and add some extra oil/butter to your assumptions.

BTW, the thing in the OP about the asterisk isn't true anymore. Skepticism about posts from 2012 is a good thing, often.

I search for the USDA entry (with the green check mark). For example, I'd type "ground turkey 93% lean USDA" and look for the best-matched entry. Another user above mentioned that different species of salmon have different fat content, so that's another specificity that'll get you close. For fruit, the same, search with USDA in the search terms. But I'd never go by a cup of melon or even a whole melon, only by ounces or grams on a food scale.

If I'm in doubt or just can't find what I think is really right, I'll use google instead to search for the USDA numbers, then go back to MFP. Every once in a great while, I still can't find that in MFP so I'll add it.