Help. Cronometer keeps adding the carbs in Erythritol to my total

(Shane E) #1

I’ve got Cronometer set to not count sugar alcohols, which it is my understanding that Erythritol is one. However, when I add Erythritol to a recipe, or my coffee, it adds carbs. I had pancakes this morning that were pretty good, but with 48 grams of carbs from Erythritol, I’m at 21 net for the day according to Cronometer. (I only had 4/10 of the pancakes.) I’ve also got some fat bombs that have only like 2-3 g carbs if you don’t count the Erythritol, but Cronomter counts them as 5.9…

Is there a way to fix this?

(Jody) #2

go to account setting and turn it off.Screen-2018-03-23_11-17-01

(Shane E) #3

So I initially felt like a bit of a dummy. I had that unchecked. The help seems to indicate that you have to have it checked for it to subtract sugar alcohols? Should it be checked or unchecked?

In either case, I’ve tried both ways and it still doesn’t subtract the Erythritol

(Diane) #4

In the app, go to “My Profile”, under the category “Settings”, go to “Macronutrient Targets”. Make sure to deselect “Include sugar alcohols in net carbs”.

Hope this helps.

(Shane E) #5

The workaround I’ve discovered so far is to add a custom food that is 4 grams of sugar alcohols and 4 carbs per serving. Use that in the recipe instead of the scanned Erythritol. The entry for the scanned version in their database is 4g carbs, 0g sugar alcohols. It’ll never subtract out that way.

Using this fix, I’m back to a relatively normal net number for the day. although it’s still a little high cause I pigged out and had 2 servings of the pancakes. :blush:

EDIT: I made a change above because the workaround was not correct. It should be 4g carbs with 4g sugar alcohols. As I had it (0g carbs, 4g sugar alcohols) it was making things look really low carb since it was essentially subtracting 4g for every serving, (so I could add it AND 4g carbs worth of table sugar if I wanted and it would still read 0 net)

(Jody) #6

it should be unchecked. As you can see, I have it unchecked and if I add Erythritol, it doesn’t count.

Screen-2018-03-23_11-17-01
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(Jody) #7

ah … so you are having a DB issue, your settings are probably correct (if you keep it unchecked). :wink:

(Shane E) #8

I’ve unchecked it. The Erythritol I was adding, “Now, Erythritol” is 4g carbs, 0g sugar alcohols. I notice the one you are using is “Now, Real Food, Erythritol” and has the correct settings. So, yeah, maybe a total db issue…

(Shane E) #9

Apparently, it also thinks the 0 carb 0 sugar, 0 calories Walden Farms syrup I used is 1.1g net per serving too… What’s the point if you can’t get accurate data. I don’t know which is right, the manufacturer, or the DB, but either way, it’s annoying.

#10

I have never found a database to be very accurate, and on top of the difficulty of reporting accurate amounts of food eaten unless I spend hours a week meticulously weighing and measuring everything I eat. It’s all estimation.

(Shane E) #11

Yeah. Just seems like such a simple thing to get correct. I’ve gotten over the DB entries not matching the label on the product though. Clearly that will never get corrected.

(Jody) #12

If you look closely at the Walden Farms container … it will say " * Contains Trace Calories" … keep that in mind. The 1.1g of net MIGHT be a good thing to see, even if it is higher than what it actually is … it will help cover the trace carbs and keep you more honest w/ the rest :wink:

(Jay AM) #13

The database for Cronometer is at least more accurate than most. Their sources come from things like the USDA and Canada Department. Or they come from people submitting photos of the package so, they do look at the package itself when they enter things which is nice. It does struggle with sugar alcohol in prepared food and some sugar alcohols add negligible amount of carbs as well. They address the struggle in one of their blogs or FAQ I think.

(Chris W) #14

I find Cronometer is very good for real whole foods. It has occasional differences in foods with Nutrition Labels. Sometimes their data is actually more accurate (fractional carbs are often excluded from Labels), sometimes they are not consistent with the label. You can flag a food in the database as having a problem and ask to have it fixed, or for a quick fix, you can create a personal custom copy of the food and fix it yourself.

(Shane E) #15

Yeah, I agree that their database seems to be more accurate than most. I’ve used a couple of other trackers and they were worse.

(Shane E) #16

I haven’t found the flagging function yet. I’ll have to take a look for it. I’ve noticed that the fractional carbs sometimes add up, which is fine, as I’d rather it were more accurate. However, there have been a few where the label isn’t even close to what the entry says, and I’d like to flag those.

(Chris W) #17

On the iPhone app, if you go to the “add food” screen, click the “more details” button, then click on the little “i” symbol in the corner, it will bring up the panel to report an issue.
I scanned a pack of bacon once that came up as cranberry juice, so there are errors :slight_smile: