Too much spam/useless entries in the catalogue
The more I use cronometer, the more I feel it's flooded with usability problems.
I do a lot of home-cooking, almost exclusively in fact. The latest problem I'm having is the catalogue is absolutely swamped with useless or replicated entries.
I want to add raw chicken thighs to my recipe. This is what I'm presented with from cronometer:
4 out of the top 5 are identical. They have exactly the same values in terms of calories, which is what I'm interested in). If they have different nutritional information then an argument could probably be made that this is even worse (eg: which one would a user choose??)
Everything after the top 6-10 items is the list is pretty much spam... for example what does adding "BBQ" to name even mean??
Switching to chicken thigh, raw gives this:
I don't even know what 'broilers or fryers' even means in this context.... i would assume it's a method of cooking... but item is pretty specific in that it's raw....??
So I'm left with the option of guessing what added solution means, or adding my own.
Actually most times what I end up doing is checking the nutrient info on the packet, and then going through every item in the list until I find a matching value.... pretty much removes the point of the catalogue as far as I can see.
I'm really starting to feel Cronometer is useless unless I literally add my own version of every food item in the catalogue. What's more confusing is that when I add my own nutritional-info for foods (which I do a lot), there seems to be a checking process.... so how did all this spam get in here if there is a human checking everything?
Comments
Huh, I just looked up a broiler-fryer chicken
Touché
BBQ means barbeque probably.
I'm running into some of the same issues. It's weird bcz I had to enter low-sodium broth. How could they not have LS broth. Oh well. My workaround for the too-many options issue has been to go for consistency --for example, choose a chicken thigh and mark it as a favorite and always use that one, unless you use product that is different from ur normal. There are some descriptions that are just odd. Potatoes really bug me.
The wording being objected to sounds like the wording of USDA Standard Reference entries. This includes the "apparent" duplication denoting slightly different preparation methods.
Now there truly does exist some duplication of entries because Chronometer shows information from multiple sources. I happen to think that a confidence rating and the entry's creation date could be useful in helping us choose an entry.
When i asked support a similar question I was referred to this blog entry in regards to the data sources used by Cronometer : https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018239472-Data-Sources
The issue is with the external databases that Cronometer uses, rather than Cronometer itself. Cronometer doesn't edit or filter the data, it just presents it to us so we can choose for ourselves. The trouble is, the interface makes it rather tedious to compare items with each other, so you either have to pick one and hope for the best, or go through each individually to figure out which to use. There is a feature request here for being able to compare foods side-by-side, which would make this process a little easier: https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/3626/side-by-side-foods-comparison
One tip which might sometimes help in selecting the best item is that the NCCDB database is nearly always the most complete nutritional listing, so if in doubt go for that one.
It's also worth bearing in mind that if you are cooking the food it's generally best to pick a cooked item where possible, rather than raw, as many things have different nutritional values when cooked (presumably you *are* cooking your chicken!). The only trouble with this is that it can sometimes make it hard to know what weigh/volume to choose as many foods shrink or absorb/exude liquid during cooking, so sometimes it might make more sense to pick the raw item, especially if you are mainly concerned with macros, which tend to be less affected by cooking (although with meat some fat will come out during cooking).
@ZomBeeBacon
Not just calories, but they have exactly the same everything. An interesting find. I hope the developers comment on what caused this.
Where do you get your data? Ultimately, someone had to measure all the values.
In any case, I think Cronometer is better than other sites.
@Sqsh
Yes, but those top 5 are actually NCCDB.
Sources like USDA and NCCDB may use the same samples for similar foods (for example chicken thigh, meat only and chicken, dark meat) and/or infer nutrient values from similar food items when they don't have analytical values.
This can lead to the same nutrient values listed for very similar foods. You can check sources of nutrient data by searching for foods in Food Data Central. Here's an example:
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/331960/nutrients
Keep in mind Cronometer uses the SR Legacy dataset at the moment, rather than the Foundation type linked above. Foundation foods provide more information about how the data were obtained that you might find useful.
Karen Stark
cronometer.com
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