Most recently used foods

Spencer

Loving Cronometer so far. I use the copy/paste function quite a bit, but I think it would be SO much easier if the app had a tab in the add food screen that showed a list of most recently used foods including my custom recipes.

I see the Common tab, but that appears to be common foods for all users? I guess I could add everything manually as favorites, but I think having a dynamic list that adjusts based on recent use would be super handy.

This list would adjust to whatever I'm eating currently vs. me having to manually add and remove favorites. Right now I usually have to go back days to copy something or I just end up scanning the UPCs over and over again which is a real pain. Let me know if I've missed something!

Hilary

Hi Spencer!
The more you use Cronometer, the smarter it gets! The pre-populated tabs within the add food dialogue will start to remember the foods you use most often/ most recently! You can refine your search by using the tabs as well! Find custom foods and recipes under the "Custom" tab.
You can also mark foods as favorites! To mark a food as a favorite, click the Star icon that appears to the left of the food name after clicking it in the results list. That food will now appear in the Favorites results tab.
To remove a food as a favorite, simply navigate back to this screen and click the star again, thus removing it from the Favorites list.

Spencer

Hrmm yes I understand. Curious why there are foods under Common that I've never eaten, like chicken and eggs? Also, there are recent foods I haven't been able to find in that list which is why I was confused as to how it's generated.

Maybe this is just me, but it would make more sense if the Common list would only contain MY most recently consumed foods, including my custom recipes which I don't see in there. This would make it so I could click add and have everything right there in one single list, vs. having to click between Common, Favorites, and Custom. Plus I would't have to manually curate this list.

Anyway, just a minor pain point. Thanks!

Hilary

Hi Spencer,
I think we have different definitions for the use of "common" here Cronometer uses "Common" to refer to generic listings of whole foods, and other foods that don't quite fall under the "Whole" category, but are foods that are commonly produced and packaged (ie. Milk, meats, eggs, and some generic listings for foods such as Tomato sauce and breads that mostly follow a similar recipe when using a store-bought verison)

Spencer

I see, thanks!

CeeJay

Just wanted to add that this is the one feature that I really wish Cronometer would implement. It would be wonderful to have the foods I recently logged appear on the first tab of the diary, or have their own separate tab. It's also frustrating that as you type in recently logged foods, they aren't the first to appear in the search results.

Spencer

Glad I'm not the only one. I was also just thinking this about search too: it doesn't put recently used foods at the top!

Plus, doing copy and paste is a hassle because a lot of the times foods are entered like "Rice Cakes, Lundberg, ......" and I can't see which type of rice cake it is if there are more than one. Also, several entries I've scanned in have unexpected titles so searching for them is difficult. This is why I resort to scanning them in over and over again.

To me, having a Recent tab would be what I'd use almost 100% of the time. This is the only real pain point I've had with the app so far. It's relatively minor and I'm working around it, but a recent tab would still be SO handy imo.

tcolvinOH

As @Hilary mentioned in a previous post, the system does seem to learn as you use it. I can tell you that my displays for food are showing foods Ive used in the past. However, I can also tell you that its not sorting them by most recently used. The search functionality is pretty good, but sometimes it does require a little work be done to find the most accurate listing in the system. Since the system is curated, I personally feel more comfortable with the data Im searching on vs another system where the data isnt as reliable. It does take some work though.

Before I discovered the scanning, which makes life a lot easier, I was hand keying in custom items. THIS is incredibly tedious and mostly untenable.

Accuracy is important, as is ease of logging. Having some way to identify recent foods is a good idea. Although, in this case, if I eat a lot of something, I just go back to previous days and copy the items. I do this a lot with the coffee I drink in the morning, since I make it the same way every day. it takes less time to copy those items than it does to research them in the food database. That might be an option to consider, although I realize its not in one convenient spot.

Hilary

@Spencer @tcolvinOH to make searches easier keep in mind our naming convention "Brand, Product, Flavour". Entering only the brand and product will show a larger variety of listings and more likely contain the item you are looking for.

CeeJay

I understand that the system does learn to add frequently used items at the top. For instance, just as you mentioned, coffee and creamer — things I consume every day — are the first two items on my diary results. However, I wish we could have separate "Most used" and "Recent" items tabs. A tab that lists recently logged food items or ingredients would be incredibly helpful for people who eat leftovers or do weekly meal preps. The copy and paste thing works as an alternative, but it's also a pain if you have to dig back through several days. I would just prefer a more streamlined way to access items that are probably still sitting in your fridge waiting for consumption. If I had chicken breast last night, I think it should be the first suggestion after typing "chi..."

rjorgenson

I was just searching around for how to do this in cronometer as it seems like such obvious functionality to me that surely I was missing something. I think adding a tab under Add Food that was just items that I have previously recorded would be a fantastic add. Even if it's just a Gold feature it's certainly functionality I would pay to have.

comanchesue

Are you guys typing in the search box? If I type in an item I've used frequently, it's at the top of the list. For example, I like the Santa Fe rice and beans frozen dinner-on the main tab (not favorites) all I do is type Santa Fe and it's the first item in the list. I don't see how it can be much easier. You don't have to type the full, long name, just the main part.

rjorgenson

I don't have that same experience, perhaps it's because most of the things I eat aren't as specific as that? But even beyond that if I log eating a thing today and it took a bit of digging to find the right entry when I go back and have that same thing a few weeks or months later I don't want to have to hunt to find it again. It does work pretty well for things I log often, but what about thing I log regularly but not often? It already knows everything i've logged I think it should allow me to filter based on that.

Spencer

Search seems to be getting better for me, but like @rjorgenson said, there are still situations where a tab with most recently used foods would be super helpful. I also thought it was such an obvious thing that I hunted for it and thought that I must be missing something.

comanchesue

It does learn what foods you like and eat the most.

BCF

I'm a new user (coming over from my fitness pal) and the ability to "filter recent foods as you type" in the mobile app is one feature that I've noticed so far where MFP has the edge. This would be a great addition to Cronometer if implemented.

Gridd

+1 for this. I also came over from MFP and now strongly prefer cronometer but this is one feature where MFP is way better.

A lot of food items I have right now but may never buy again. I might eat some salsa 10x but then buy a different salsa afterward. If I type in "salsa", the app has no clue that I might want the same one I ate the last 5 times. But of course that's the salsa I'm looking for. I have to use copy/paste constantly when it should be as easy as a search.

Rahal

I would also prefer a Recent tab. It is annoying to go back to a previous day to check the exact name of a food/supplement (or copy it) because it does not show up for whatever reason. Machine learning (which I assume is used for the search feature) has its place, but replacing such a basic feature is not it. It just makes for a confusing and frustrating experience.

Hilary

Hi @Rahal We have a recents filter in the mobile app, and are hoping to make some big improvements in our food search in general soon - can't wait for them! In the meantime, if you are using the same foods quite often, I would recommend using the custom recipe feature to create a recipe to add multiple foods to your diary at once for easier/ quicker food logging! Search for the recipe and add it to your diary, then, right click (Or on mobile swipe the entry to the right) and select 'Explode recipe'. This will add each item to your diary separately and you can edit/ delete items as you wish!

rjorgenson

@Hilary I never noticed that filter setting on mobile that is fantastic and exactly what I was looking for! Like has been mentioned previously the most common use case for this is I will eat a thing frequently for a period of time, but not nearly long enough for it to start showing up as a "most frequent food" - being able to go buy a tub of yogurt i've never eat before and might not ever eat again and not having to dig for it among 40 different entries is a very very useful feature. I hope it comes to desktop at some point too =]

Rahal

That's good to know, thanks for the information. Hopefully this filter won't take long to come to the web/desktop version too.

Citizen_Snips

I came across this thread via searching for how to add recent foods to my food log and would like to echo the other comments here that having an explicit "recent" tab on the "add food to diary" window that listed the last N foods added to the diary would make entering my foods so much easier.

I've been using Fitday since the mid-2000's and have been searching for a replacement for a while now given that Fitday has it's own issues and hasn't been in active development for a long time. There are a lot of things Cronometer does better than Fitday that make me want to switch, but there are little issues like this (which Fitday already solved for the most part) that make it not worth the hassle of switching.

walking_talking_8

I'll jump in here to ask that at a minimum, the "favorites" should be able to be sorted by name. I have lit up the "star" next to foods I have used (or wish to use) routinely, and they do show in favorites just fine, but having them in A-Z order would be useful for me. Making it an option would not interfere with how others use the app. Otherwise I am very happy with Cronometer. New user.

_mez

https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/comment/13881#Comment_13881

Don't know if you run iOS or Android, but on iOS you can do that. When you add a food, at the top, tap on the filter button (on the right hand side):

This will bring the filter menu, and here you can select the Sort By and the Filter itself:

Does this help?

walking_talking_8

Thanks! It helps in the mobile version. I almost exclusively use the web version.

Lector

This problem still persists, and I've reported it in the Beta forum, linking back here for more information.

As far as I see it as a software developer, among search results with similar rankings, the items that the user has ever had, should be at the top, and ones they never had (but still do match) should be sorted after. In practical terms, that means increasing the weight for an item's recency. Probably this means changing exactly one number in the code. Not even one line, but one number.

Citizen_Snips

Is there any update on this issue?

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Citizen_Snips,

We had a big upgrade to the food search on mobile a little while ago. Access the filter menu in the food search and Sort by Most Recent to get a dynamic list that adjusts based on items you've logged recently.

Let me know if there was something else you're looking for!

Piano94

@Karen_Cronometer Are there plans to implement the same 'most recent' sorting with the web app?