Accuracy of counting apps

(Chris) #1

Today I looked up a “keto friendly” recipe and made cheesesteak in portebello mushrooms. When I plugged the ingrediants into cronometer, it said I’ve consumed over 80g of carbs today! No! I looked at the main culprits and it says the red onion and green bell pepper of all things! How can this be?

I looked both of those veggies up on the internet and google reports them to have about half the carbs for 1 cup chopped compared to the app. So, with so little room, how accurate are these things? Should I really keep trying to eliminate things like this? Can I not eat bell pepper?

#2

In the beginning I used those apps as a guideline to steer me in the right directions but never put too much stock in what they have to say. I don’t really track anything anymore. I have a pretty good idea of what and how much I should be eating at this point.

(Chris W) #3

If you take a step back and look at the information and apply it to the real world most food labels are only so accurate. Things like veggies vary from each to the next, labels much like the macros are guides. I work in the food industry the labels are at best close and at worst out and out lies based on known information on one sample. This will always be the case on dynamic substances like fruit, cheese, meat, and vegetables. You can tell when a ribeye is fatty compared to the app which says its "x"g of fat.
I love spinach, my cup of spinach is probably not the same as my daughters cup of spinach, portions matter.

You also rely on the person inputting the information to the app and their interpretation of size. Country to country that information differs in quality, quantity, and style. Its a bureaucrat trying to make nature conform to a scientists ideal with an engineer trying to make it reasonable.

(Retta Stephenson) #4

Do you have it set to “net carbs”?
Make sure it’s giving you the amount for 1 serving.
Look under Serving Sizes (on the Custom recipe page where you inputted the dish) and make sure you told it how many serving per whole recipe.

Yesterday I put in a custom “keto” recipe that claimed it had only 3 net carbs per serving. But Cronometer totaled it up to 7 net carbs per serving, Eek!

I sure don’t know how you got to 80g. 1 cup of raw green bell peppers has 6.9 total carbs. And 1 cup of raw red onions has 18.1 total carbs. This per Cronometer.

If you’d like some tutorials for Cronometer, there are a bunch on youtube.

(Chris) #5

[Album] Imgur

Look at the green bell pepper and the onion all by themselves. They put me over the limit according to the app.
Ignore the almonds. I know I shouldn’t have had those. Everything else on there should have made for a good day I thought.