Boron

SimpleCronoUser

I would like Boron to be tracked in the Minerals section. Thanks!

Karen_Cronometer

Hi there!

We don't have the Boron values for foods available in our data sources at this time. We would be happy to include them when we have this data though! Thanks for your request.

Best,

SimpleCronoUser

Thanks Karen!
There are a lot of Supplements on the market containing Boron.

That's why I think it'd be useful to be able to track it.

mikkaz

@Karen_Cronometer even though your sources might not contain it, it is listed on many supplements. If we have to wait for your sources to include them, it may never happen because you are waiting on someone else - a 3rd party. A better approach would be that if a product lists a common nutrient, whether or not your sources include it, we should be able to track it. Doing this for CoQ10, Inositol, Boron, Glucosamine, Chondroitin Sulfate and others would be helpful. I know some nutrients are fringe and perhaps debatable, but when something is commonly listed on supplements, I think it really should be able to be tracked.

Karen_Cronometer

Definitely still worth tracking other nutrients when you have the data

If you'd like to track them now, you could create a custom biometric for each one. Then add the biometric to your diary when you take your supplements.
Copy them to each day if you consume them regularly and don't want to save time entering in multiple biometrics each day.

mikkaz

@Karen_Cronometer Thanks for the idea Karen. I wanted to share some idea I had myself as I applied yours incase it interests others. I had the idea to also create an "Annotation" biometric. Basically, when I create a Note, I will also create an Annotation biometric which tracks each time I make a note so I can see my notes charted chronologically. The reason this is relevant to this thread is I can create a general Trace Minerals biometric and then, if I change brands, I can make a Note and an Annotation of it. This will enable me to use a general Trace Mineral metric instead of a different one for each brand.

MJ7

It’s been 3 1/2 years since this thread started. I was just checking if boron was already included in the app, but I can’t find it there. I’d love to be able to track boron, see how much boron is in foods using the Nutrient Oracle. It’s so essential for absorption of magnesium, for instance. It’s a really important substance in the prevention of osteoporosis and hyperparathyroidism, to name a few. Would you please include this in your app? It’s just not complete without it. If another app offers this, I may well change to use that app.

deed

__did anyone find another program that tracks boron???

Clair

Im also considering leaving Cronometer because I cant track Boron.

thistle_dave

it would appear that if you use the USDA values and not the NCCDB values you would get a boron value - Food Data Central Database https://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-fis/usda-foods-database BUT outwardly there is no identification (field, data capture, etc.) of boron in the available attributes in Cronometer

PAV8888

@thistle_dave as a fellow user you piqued my interest by saying that USDA might have boron values that might not be included in NCCDB. But to me it doesn't look like boron is a mineral normally included in USDA data. Maybe I missed it, but a couple of random look ups on coffee and prune juice in food data central today do not appear to list any values for boron. And if it is not in USDA and not in NCCDB this leaves very few databases that I would trust.

So it definitely appears to be an edge case, not something that it would make sense to have as part of core information. And it sounds that the custom biometric route may be an option in terms of tracking something like this.

I admit to not having played with custom metrics, so I have no idea as to whether they would be something that is easy enough to setup and use.

thistle_dave

@PAV8888 https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/download-datasets Hi, I went to this specific page to look at the datasets. there is a link to data type documentation but anyway if you download the "Branded" dataset you end up with some huge files but one of the smaller ones is nutrient.csv. Within this file is a line item for Boron. However if in the larger files branded_foods.csv or food_nutrient.csv the manufacturers are not reporting Boron then when someone built a database out of the master tables and the data tables there would be no reported information for Boron. Often in relational databases the master tables contain fields for every possible occurrence but that does not mean the end user/data provider is going to use those fields. In the end this may that no data provider is tracking it. I can't see how the biometric option would assist, within this thread you are still left making a lot of notes on how much Boron you consume from a variety of foods even if you stuck with a top ten.