Recipes with liquids ignore the liquid's weight

Lector

I've just created a cereal recipe with 1 cup of milk (240mL) and some muesli and protein powder. The Total Recipe Weight was displayed as "78g", only the solids.

I understand the density of liquids isn't readily available, but assuming it to be zero doesn't seem right. Is there a better solution?

Westsideben

When the product nutrition label is based on volume only, I create a custom food (hemp milk in this example) and enter the weight of the volume obtained from a home scale.

Lector

That's a workaround. It's what we keep doing because Cronometer development seems to have stopped.

comanchesue

Cronometer gets their info for the Fed database-liquids aren't converted to grams because it all depends on the liquid. Are you saying this is so much work that you don't want to do it? One time? weight your hemp milk and enter it as a custom food and you will always be able to select the exact amount. Cronometer is an awesome tool.

Lector

No, I'm fine with calculating the density of whatever liquid.

What I'm disappointed by is the incredibly slow pace (zero, since I started using it in early Jan) at which Cronometer fixes glaring, long-standing issues that should be trivial to fix.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Lector,

This is an issue when you use brand name liquid products with not weight associated with them. If you stick with generic alternatives from NCCDB or USDA you'll get accurate weights to go with volumetric serving sizes. We try to display all the unknowns as such when you're viewing the recipe in the Foods tab. We're open to suggestions for better solutions!

Lector

Hi Karen,

Thanks for clarifying. A first, underlying, suggestion, straightforward to implement, would be to display the base unit as a serving size for serving sizes that only come in multiples.

Example:

Some fluid comes in 16 fl oz can. I pour part of it into a smoothie and the scale shows I used 4.3 fl oz of from the can*. Now I need to do some awkward mental math to calculate how much 4.3 is out of 16, because there's no way to select fl oz as the serving size. With foods, you can always select g.

(While at it, it would be fantastic, and also straightforward to implement, to automatically add the 1 mL metric unit to liquids).

* I see that simply bare taring the scale with the can on it (so it shows zero), pouring as much as I need out of the can, then putting the can back on the scale. It will show how much was taken out, with a minus sign.