Are you guys/gals actually using the Search function?

[Colin]

To me, the search function with the 7500 foods has proved to be
completely worthless to me. I never get what I'm looking for, and I
want exact values. I mean, there's several types of cereal and I want
the exact brand who made it. The database doesn't proved this
information.

With that being said, I just find myself googling the nutritional
facts of food items that don't have the nutritional label on them.

I'm not the only one who feels this way, right?

[dle...@gmail.com]

This is a very good question. I personally don't like the internal
database that much. But it was the top requested feature before the
software was released. I like it for basic ingredients like celery
that have no label. Or the average amount for a slice of pizza when
eating out. But you have to be very specific with the search to find
them. I'm working on fixing this, but even then, the 7500 items is
both too much to find what you want and too little to be very useful.
It's a real problem.

It is simply not possible to include millions of items for brands and
data on the iPhone. A connectivity feature may fix the issue. But that
is a bit of time away.

What are other's thoughts? How should we deal with this?

--Derrek

[rqe3bc]

Searching the FDA database has always been an adventure, but
eventually one learns its search quirks. If you're looking for a
brand name than searching by brand name is better than searching for
something generic like "cereal". If the brand name isn't there, it's
easy enough to add it in with the nutritional info from the box
(assuming there are only a few brands you want.)

For non-brand foods, as an example, "cooked beans" or "raw beans" in
the search will return a list of all types of beans, while "Beans"
will get you the babyfood list, brand name soups and a list of beans.
I guess you just have to start thinking like the FDA :)

It might be helpful to get access to the database list with something
other than or in addition to the search function. Perhaps an option
to organize the FDA database by an alpha sort (the way the Albums list
is organized on the iPhone/iTouch as an Apple example) would make it a
little easier to find specific foods.

On the bright side, once you figure out the search, it's better than
typing in everything from scratch.

> > I'm not the only one who feels this way, right?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[ohcrud]

I do use it. Now granted sometimes I have to use it in conjunction
with http://www.nutritiondata.com/ in order to 1) see if what's listed
there is also listed in this data base and in the measurement I'm
looking for and 2) perhaps give me a more exact way to search.

But yes I do use it.

[Enyan]

Searching the database is not intuative, but once you know how it does
get easier to find what you want, but it can be a little hit and miss
I agree.

For example, lets say I wanted to look up the value of an apple.

I type "apple" in search and I get a list of babyfood with apple,
pineapple and even applesauce. Yum!
I add a comma "apple," and I get a few more things like some cereals
and more pineapple!
I try and define apple more I type in "apple, raw", but I still don't
get raw apple.

I actually have to type in "apple raw" to get "Apples, raw, with
skinl".

Many of the BIG database will have an overhead as no doubt a license
will have to be bought to use them.

A good tip if you do your grocery shopping online: use their food
database to look at food nutirition. This is actually quite handy, as
online stores keep track on what you buy and generally have your last
order and sometimes favourite food lists. For me this means I have a
pre-built list of what I buy frequently (included the big brands) and
can enter the nutritional informtion the store supplies online for
iScale.

If I'm out and about I will do a quick seach in iScale's database to
help estimate the values of what I eat.

[Colin]

Ok, Cool! Got it to work.

Can you make it so you can preview the foods you find in the Search
function? Like if my friend orders a Big Mac from McDonalds and is
curious about the nutritional information, I have to search for it,
and then am forced to add it to my foods to see all the nutritional
information.

I noticed when editing foods, all the nutritional information will
automatically transfer over to previously added meals in my Journal.
So if I realize the drink I had had 100 calories instead of 80, the
Journal recognizes the changes and adjusts the previously entered
amount. But how come this doesn't work for when you change the name? I
named the drink Coke, but then changed it to Coca-Cola, but the
Journal doesn't change it, too. This becomes annoying.

When editing foods/meals, does there have to be in Edit button in the
top right? Why can't I just click on the field I want to change,
instead of having to click Edit beforehand. I'm guessing you thought
people might accidentally edit it when just looking at the nutritional
information? I understand that, but does anyone else think this, too,
becomes tedious?

Will you be adding a search function to foods and meals?

[dle...@gmail.com]

> Can you make it so you can preview the foods you find in the Search
> function?

In an upcoming version there will be a sort of natural preview due to
measurement conversion.

> I noticed when editing foods, all the nutritional information will
> automatically transfer over to previously added meals in my Journal.
> So if I realize the drink I had had 100 calories instead of 80, the
> Journal recognizes the changes and adjusts the previously entered
> amount. But how come this doesn't work for when you change the name? I
> named the drink Coke, but then changed it to Coca-Cola, but the
> Journal doesn't change it, too. This becomes annoying.

If you click the blue arrow in the journal for coke you'll see that
the food name does change. The meal name doesn't change because meals
are not shared the same way in the software. Meals change frequently
and we didn't want the meal to change your history every time you make
it slightly differently. On the other hand, Foods nutitional value
never changes. An apple of the same size and type will always be the
same nutritionally. They don't change. If your favorite bread company
changes their recipe, you should probably enter them as new foods.

>
> When editing foods/meals, does there have to be in Edit button in the
> top right? Why can't I just click on the field I want to change,

I was actually just following apple's lead with the contacts
application. I think the other reason is it acts like a save command.
It is how the software knows you want to keep your changes. At the
very least I can put the program directly into edit mode where
appropriate.

>
> Will you be adding a search function to foods and meals?

I think before that will come an index/favorite/categories. If people
still can't find what they want then search.

--Derrek

[J]

I think the search function needs a little work. For instance, if I
search for Milk, I get tons of items that have "milk" in the
description, but nothing where "milk" is in the first word of the
entry; I get: "Biscuits, plain or buttermilk, dry mix", "Candies,
MASTERFOODS USA, MILKY WAY Bar", etc. To get milk I have to search for
"milk li" or "lowfat". This seems to happen only with items that can
be ingredients/descriptions of other foods: onion, egg, etc. If it's
just limited to those, then it's not a big deal, but I still think the
search should pull all results containing the search term.

> > Will you be adding asearchfunction to foods and meals?

>
> I think before that will come an index/favorite/categories. If people
> still can't find what they want thensearch.
>
> --Derrek
>
>
>
> > On Jul 26, 5:59 pm, Enyan <g.w.nay...@shu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > Searching the database is not intuative, but once you know how it does
> > > get easier to find what you want, but it can be a little hit and miss
> > > I agree.
>
> > > For example, lets say I wanted to look up the value of an apple.
>

> > > I type "apple" insearchand I get a list of babyfood with apple,

[Derrek Leute]

Yep. Currently the simple solution is to search more specifically like
you have already discovered. This is one of the areas that will be
improved soon.

That said, the nutrition label is far more accurate than anything
else. The search was mostly included to help in a pinch. When doing
the initial development we looked at this as an "in the pinch"
solution. Since then it's become clear that we need to focus on
streamlining this area of the program. It is among many changes coming
in the future.

--Derrek