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People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

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Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#51

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

yurishimo wrote: post #31
aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

For sauces, I either use a bottled sauce if I really want to stick to macros, or I try to make the exact same recipe each time and then I can select my previously created logged item in the diet app.

That's really key. I've had great success with calorie tracking, but the first few weeks always sucks until I have my regulars figured out, then it becomes a lot easier. Afterwards, it's just a matter of repetition and measuring.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#52

Post by jjcob »

aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

I've done that for weight loss, so I focussed on calories only. That was pretty easy:

- while cooking, you weigh every ingredient. Either I just take photos of the scale with my phone, or I write it on a sheet of paper.

- when cooking is done, you weigh the total food (easiest if you know the weight of your pots)

- when eating, you weigh your portions

After some time, you realise that you need to be precise for some things (oil, butter) but can just guess or ignore some things (eg. onions and miso have so little calories that you really don't need to weigh them).

If it's a dish like Lasagna, you don't even need to weigh it at the end, just estimate what fraction of the dish your serving is.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#54

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

There is no problem with dietary research. The 'problem' is by design.

Both people doing the research and people funding the research know very well that what the flaw of this approach is, but just chose to do the shoddy job that they do because it brings in money. If it's not by design then there is a worse conclusion - the researchers/funders are incompetent. It's most likely a mix of incompetence/corruption.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#55

Post by RUnconcerned »

aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

Well, by weighing and logging everything. You are correct that it takes a lot longer when you do that. That's the cost of keeping track of your caloric intake. I also do not account for any nutrient loss or divergence from different cooking times, leftovers, or from different species.

I only weigh everything I eat when I am actively trying to lose weight, however, and when I am doing so I deliberately restrict my diet to meals where I won't waste a lot of time weighing everything. If I'm trying to maintain or gain weight, I don't really bother with it.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#56

Post by varispeed »

jjcob wrote: post #52
aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

I've done that for weight loss, so I focussed on calories only. That was pretty easy: - while cooking, you weigh every ingredient. Either I just take photos of the scale with my phone, or I write it on a sheet of paper. - when cooking is done, you weigh the total food (easiest if you know the weight of your pots) - when eating, you weigh your portions After some time, you realise that you need to be precise for some…

How do you calculate calories?

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#57

Post by ebiester »

aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

I am very diligent, and the truth is that it is hard and it changes how you eat to be more countable. On a cut, it matters more. On maintenance, it matters less.

But most of it is a guessing game and making an assumption that it will all even out later. Ignore spices - you can assume 25 calories a day and it’ll still be too much.

Be diligent about oils. 9 calories a gram bites you quickly.

But ultimately, if you miss 100 calories a day, and are in a 500 calorie deficit recorded, you are still going to lose .8 pounds a week. And if that is consistent, adjust your portions and be fine with how you record.

And that’s the key - we know nutrition is variable. You won’t get it perfect. You just have to adjust for the imperfections.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#58

Post by BoxFour »

liveoneggs wrote: post #49
BoxFour wrote: post #3

Does this actually pose an issue for most studies? This seems like it would be an issue for any studies relying on absolute food consumption being accurate. Most studies I come across frame their findings in relative terms (likely for this very reason): Individuals who engage in more of X compared to their peers show a correlation with outcome Y. For example, if you’re trying to determine whether morning coffee consu…

All of those headlines are based on meta-studies putting together 100 junk studies, based on bad data, which then informs actual medicine and health trends and American X Association and... For your specific example - "morning coffee" could be anything from plain espresso shot to full 600+ calorie starbucks "coffee" but the meta-study-machine will lump them together. It's kind of like feeding all of reddit's comments…

> "morning coffee" could be anything from plain espresso shot to full 600+ calorie starbucks "coffee" but the meta-study-machine will lump them together.

You're inadvertently proving my point, though.

If morning caffeine is correlated with longevity, regardless of the vehicle/extra sugar/etc and controlling for the easy usual circumstances like income, that's pretty useful information!

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#59

Post by Azerty9999 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #29

For those that "track and weight everything" (how ?) do you manage ?: - sauces you make yourself? I often mix some different oils, mustard, seeds, miso, bit of leamon juice and spices… but weighting and logging everything will take 3x the time to do the sauce itself - different cooking time in one receive : oignons going first, tomato sauce in the middle and parsley at the end (but still cook a bit with residual heat…

It's really just focused on a keto diet, but using the app at https://www.carbmanager.com you can look up low-carb foods really well and enter units in all kinds of ways. I know someone who successfully used it for about 2 months a while ago, but then they went off keto and the app DB didn't have many non-carb heavy foods.
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