Optional 'Based on ingredients' mode

It seems a lot of foods logged onto this tracker don't have anything beyond macros and neglect the macronutrient profiles of the foods.

It would be incredibly useful if there was an algorithm that detected keywords in foods or when an item is added to the database of foods, to add what its ingredients are (supposedly from another list similar to the food database) and for that ingredient, it would automatically set the values of the micro and macronutrient profile based on the % of the ingredient in the food.
this would be a setting or 'switch' you could toggle on the site

I know this is kinda a big ask of the company but honestly, it'd be such a big step in the progression of this tracker and its accuracy

(also fatty acid profiles added to lipids would be good too)

Comments

  • Branded products oftentimes don't list full nutrient profiles on their nutrition labels, and because we do not analyze foods for their data here at Cronometer we cannot fill in the blanks or know what the values are for nutrients not listed on the label.

    The best way to get the most nutrition information is to use our most comprehensive database - the NCCDB. By performing text-based searches when adding foods, most whole foods can be found from the NCCDB which lists many, many more vitamins and minerals in their nutrient profiles.

    I suggest taking a look at this blog as it should help you navigate Cronometer to it's fullest capabilities to enable you to obtain more accurate information on both macro and micronutrients.

    Once you are selecting ingredients with a full nutrient profile, you should then be able to create custom recipes which contain a more complete nutrient profile as well!

    I hope this helps!

    Hilary
    cronometer.com
    As always, any and all postings here are covered by our T&Cs:
    https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/27/governing-terms-and-disclaimer

  • Hilary, I'm not sure that you understood the request.

    Branded products usually have ingredient lists available in addition to the limited nutrition profiles mandated for consumer food products. Rather than each user attempting to create a recipe from NCCDB entries that fits the ingredient list and available profile, it would be great if Cronometer could develop an algorithm that takes both the ingredient list and the official nutrition profile to predict a more complete nutrient profile. I agree with LucasApples that reporting based on such data should be an option (possibly only available to Gold subscribers) since the additional nutrition data would not be based on actual measurements. Of course, this wouldn't be as accurate as actually creating a recipe from carefully measured ingredients, but users consuming branded food can't do that any better than an algorithm could - we don't have the data either.

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