figuring out the nutrition tracking

goodeater24
goodeater24 Posts: 41 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am new to this site and was very excited about getting my food diary started. I'm frustrated though. I weigh my food, and have done so for many years. This program seems to work with measured quantities only. For instance, I wanted to enter 1 oz. of oat bran. It only gave choices of cups, so I tried to enter my own. But it told me I had to say how many cups cooked. I weight it raw, before it's cooked and depending on how much water I put in it each day, the measurement varies. Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks.

Replies

  • fatmom51
    fatmom51 Posts: 173 Member
    If you can't find something that matches up, you can enter it yourself as a new food and enter all the nutritional information you have for the specific way you eat/make it. You can then refer back to it each time you use it. For some of the foods you can click on the arrow next to the serving size to see other options. (For example, on butter it offers the option of tablespoons, pat, teaspoon, cup, etc.)
  • Pandorian
    Pandorian Posts: 2,055 Member
    To enter a food, you've stumbled on one error in the site.
    There are 3 required fields to create a food on MFP. Serving size (what you put on your plate) servings per container (how many servings of the serving size are in the container you have) and the calories. If you're going to share with the database please fill in everything you have available from the label! If you're keeping it private log what you need.

    When you leave "servings per container" blank you get the error "please enter a valid serving size" which leads you to think your 1 ounce serving size is the problem when it is not.
  • fatmom51
    fatmom51 Posts: 173 Member
    I took a look at some of the entries for oat bran. There are a few there, most of which list the dry weight (pre-cooked) at 31 grams, which is right around 1 oz. give or take. Unless you're really particular, you could just pick one of those. They're probably all pretty close. Sometimes when I can't find my item, I pick one that has nutritional information that's pretty close, especially if I'm in a hurry, as long as it's within about 10 calories plus-or-minus.
    But as for the oat bran, wen I clicked on the pull-down arrow next to serving size, it gave a couple of options for 1 cup, 1 oz.
    Welcome and good luck. It sounds like you're making some very healthy choices.
  • fatmom51
    fatmom51 Posts: 173 Member
    EDITED TO ADD: When you enter it yourself, enter the total size as 1 oz. uncooked and then enter the serving size as 1. I think that should work.

    Aha! I see what you mean. When you're entering it yourself, the line for serving size says (e.g. 1/2 c. cooked), but it's a little dimmed. Once you click in that field, that info disappears and you can enter whatever you want. Chicken is already there, but you can enter it as 5 servings of 1 oz. each, or 1 5-oz. serving. Hope that makes sense.
  • goodeater24
    goodeater24 Posts: 41 Member
    Thanks for your tips. I'm going to try to make it work. But, what about servings per bag? What if I buy oat bran from the bin? Or if I want to enter a fresh vegetable? I guess I could put any number in there and not allow my entry to be available to others, so as not to mess them up. I have to say, the online data base I've been using up to now, gives many more options, and therefore is more accurate for me. Although mfp does give more information. Maybe I have to try to be less obsessive.
  • tigerlily8045
    tigerlily8045 Posts: 402 Member
    before you start entering lots of stuff yourself, see if you can use what is there. The item may be 3 oz and you only used 1.5 oz so put in that you ate .5 serving. I do that a lot so that I am not changing the item itself just how much I used of it.
  • goodeater24
    goodeater24 Posts: 41 Member
    Thank you. That worked! Solved my problem.

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