Tips & Tricks Archives - Cronometer Blog

7 Tips For Getting The Most Accurate Nutrition Data

admin — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 16:17:00 +0000

Getting The Most Accurate Data

At Cronometer, we pride ourselves in having the best, most comprehensive nutrition information that an app can give. Our app is a powerful tool for tracking your nutrition in great detail. However, with great power comes great responsibility.

Nutrition science and nutrition data is a messy business, and in order to get the most out of Cronometer, it does require a bit more education on the nuances and complications around tracking diets. This article provides a guide through some of these issues and tips for how to deal with them.

A Note On Cronometer's Data

When you search for a food in Cronometer, it’s good to know that your search results will be coming from three main sources:

Lab-Analyzed: We have a large database of common whole foods that have been analyzed in great detail. Foods coming from lab-analyzed sources will be non-branded, generic listings (like Almonds, Raw) and they will be marked as USDA, NCCDB, NUTTAB.

User Submitted Foods: We have a growing database of foods which is populated by user submitted food entries. To ensure accuracy, each of these entries are checked by a staff member before being made readily available to the rest of our users. That being said, foods coming from these sources will typically be limited to the number of nutrients listed on the nutrition label when in reality, more nutrients are present. These foods will be marked as CRDB.

Branded Products & Restaurant Foods: We also rely on several databases of popular branded foods and chain restaurant foods. Foods coming from these sources will typically be limited to the number of nutrients listed on the nutrition label when in reality, more nutrients are present. These foods will be marked as Trustwell, UPC or Nutritionix.

For more information on our data sources, click here.

Tips For Maximizing Your Data

Check The Source

When searching for a food, check the ‘source’ column.

USDA, NCCDB, CNF, NUTTAB, CoFID, NEVO, IFCDB are all of our lab-analyzed sources which will have the most detailed nutrition information.
CRDB, UPC, Trustwell (ESHA), Nutritionix will typically be less detailed nutrition information with data being sources from the foods nutrition label.

Hot tip: tap over to the ‘Common’ category or use the filter button when searching for a food to only show results from specified data sources.

Check The Nutrient Count

Tap into any food entry to quickly check the number of listed nutrients. If a food has 50 or less listed nutrients, chances are the data is coming strictly from the nutrition label and isn’t a comprehensive look at all of it’s nutrients.

When Better Alternatives Exist

We’re now using AI to automatically ensure you can access better, more accurate data.

If a User Submitted, Branded Product or Restaurant Food has a similar food entry in one of our lab-analyzed databases, we will cross reference and automatically add the nutrients that the entry is missing. You’ll see that this is the case when there are two data sources listed and a magic wand icon appears with the listed nutrients.

Be Careful Using The Barcode Scanner

One of the greatest features of Cronometer that can help you log food faster is our Barcode Scanner – and yes, it’s free!

If you enjoy the convenience of using the barcode scanner, it’s good to keep in mind that the majority of results will be coming from the second data source mentioned above. Meaning, you might not be getting credit for some of the nutrients you’re eating because it wasn’t listed on the nutrition label.

So, if you’re trying to leverage Cronometer for accurate micronutrient tracking, you might want to avoid using the barcode scanner and look for food entries with full nutrient profiles (70+ listed nutrients) from the NCCDB, USDA or NUTTAB.

For example, let’s say you ate some brazil nuts which are a great source of selenium. Scanning the package with the Barcode Scanner will bring up Trader Joe’s Brazil Nuts, which contains 17 listed nutrients. As opposed to a generic Brazil Nuts, Unsalted entry from the NCCDB, which has data for 76 different nutrients.

Weigh It Out

If you want the most accuracy, we recommend using a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients with a kitchen scale. In Cronometer, most food entries have different serving sizes available to choose from, but some can be subjective, especially for certain types of foods.

For example, if you were adding ‘1 cup of raw baby spinach’, this can vary person to person. One may loosely pack the leaves into a cup, and another may stuff them in tightly. Both have 1 cup of baby spinach, but the actual amounts can be completely different.

Remove the ambiguity here by weighing the food and entering the actual gram weight. This is less of an issue for food types that are more uniform like liquids or powders (my cup of flour should be the same as yours).

Try To Stick To Whole Foods

This suggestion might sound a little cheeky, but if you truly care about optimizing your nutrition and improving your health, try to prepare your own food from quality whole-food ingredients. If you eat whole foods, you’ll be logging the best data as a side effect!

Understand The Limitations

Nutrition data can be messy, even for high-quality data sources. Exact amounts of nutrients can vary significantly from sample to sample. One apple’s nutrient profile can be significantly different from another, even if it’s picked from the same tree.

The nutrition information provided will be derived from the average of several different lab tests of the food.

Don’t get too caught up in the exact amounts down to the microgram. These are meant to be accurate numbers but not precision truths.

In Summary

If you’re only paying attention to your macros (calories, carbs, protein, fat) then feel free to take a step back and be less discerning, but if you care about the finer details like your micronutrient intake, amino acids, and other nutrient breakdowns:

Pay attention to the sources
Use the ‘Common’ category selection as much as possible
Weigh your ingredients with a kitchen scale
Be careful when using the barcode scanner
Eat & log whole foods

The post 7 Tips For Getting The Most Accurate Nutrition Data appeared first on Cronometer Blog.

Tips & Tricks: 9 Ways To Log Food Faster

Emily Wright — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 17:31:57 +0000

How To Log Food Fast

“It’s too time consuming to log my food.”

Yes – we know! It’s a lot of work, especially at the beginning of your Cronometer journey. We get this one all the time from users and while we think that the time spent logging your food is well worth the knowledge you gain from it, we do have a few tricks up our sleeve which will help you speed up the process.

Home Screen Quick Add

If you’re using the mobile app, it’s easy to reduce the amount of taps it takes to add a food. From the home screen of your phone, long-tap on the Cronometer icon which will bring up a quick actions menu. Tap Add Food, and you’ll get brought directly to the food search panel.

Barcode Scanner

A fan-favourite Cronometer feature is our Barcode Scanner. Don’t worry, it’s free! Simply scan the barcode of the food you’ve eaten and it will bring up the entry of that food in our database.

If the food isn’t already in our database, we’ll ask you to take a photo of the nutrition label and the packaging and the app will auto-fill the nutrition details and create a Custom Food in your account. This allows you to add the food to your Diary right away but it will also submit the item into our queue to be checked by a staff member before being added to the public database.

Access the Barcode Scanner (only available on the mobile app) in a few different ways:

Tap the + button on the main menu, select ‘Scan Food’.
Use the home screen quick actions menu mentioned above.
From the food search panel, tap the barcode icon in the top right corner.

Copy & Paste

Copy & paste is a functionality you can use in several ways across the app to save time while logging your food. Copy a single entry by swiping right on the food and tapping the ⋮ icon. Copy an entire day by tapping the ⋮ in the top right hand corner of your Diary. Gold users can also copy the contents of an entire Diary Group by swiping right on the Diary Group header.

Get a full breakdown of the many ways to use copy & paste on mobile or on web.

Custom Meals

If you’re not already using our Custom Meal feature, now is the time to start! Meals allow you to group several foods together so you can quickly add multiple foods in just a few taps.

If you’re always eating the same thing for breakfast (two eggs, toast and three coffees) or taking the same supplement cocktail every day, create a meal containing those items. That way, you’ll just need to add the Custom Meal to your Diary instead of each individual item.

Once a Custom Meal has been added to your Diary, you can use the ‘explode meal’ feature to create individual entries for each food so you can edit the measurements or delete items separately.

Learn how to leverage the Custom Meal feature here.

Set Repeat Items (Gold Feature)

By upgrading to Gold, you’ll get access to several features that will make tracking your nutrition faster and easier – you’ll no longer be interrupted by advertising, you can create recipes in a flash with our Recipe Importer and you’ll gain access to be able to schedule your foods, meals and recipes on repeat.

This feature cuts down a ton of time if you consistently consume the same foods since you can add all of your repeating items in just one click.

Multi-Add

If you’re adding multiple foods at once, you can save a little time by using the ‘Multi-Add’ functionality. When searching for a food on the mobile app, tap on the orange filter icon in the right hand side of the search bar. Toggle on ‘Enable Multi-Add’ and start your food search. Tap on the orange box to select an item and search for your next foods. You’ll be able to review before adding all of the items to your Diary or creating a Custom Recipe with your selection.

Quick Add From Diary Group (Gold Feature)

By upgrading to Gold, you’ll also gain access to Diary Groups which allow you to categorize your food entries. Most of our users will use breakfast, lunch and dinner but we applaud any creativity here.

Diary Groups also come with some little-known functionality including the quick add menu. On mobile, tap the + on the left side of the Diary Group label, which will bring up a menu allowing you to add food, exercise, a biometric, note or scan a barcode.

You can even customize the menu for each Diary Group in More > Diary Settings > Group Quick Add Preferences.

Dictate On iOS

If you use Cronometer on an iPhone, enable dictation and you’ll be able to talk instead of type during the food search process. Enabling dictation will allow you to speak anywhere there’s a text field so if you prefer to speak rather than type, this can be a handy tool.

While in the food search panel, tap the search bar and press on the microphone icon in the bottom right corner of the keyboard. Then just say the food you’re looking for and Apple will type it into the search bar for you.

Quick Add From Custom Foods & Recipes Page

On mobile, if you find yourself on your Custom Foods or Custom Recipes page (Foods > Custom Foods or Foods > Custom Recipes), swipe right on any item in the list to bring up an option to add that item to your Diary.

Well, there you have it. We hope that you learned at least one thing from these quick-adding tips. Put them into practice to help make logging your food in Cronometer an easier, breezier process.

Want to learn more Crono hacks? Here are some more tips & tricks.

The post Tips & Tricks: 9 Ways To Log Food Faster appeared first on Cronometer Blog.

Tips & Tricks: For The Gold User

Emily Wright — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 18:31:52 +0000

Our Favourite Tricks For Cronometer Gold

Upgrading to our Gold subscription will provide access to tons of cool extras – but you already know that, don’t you? If you’ve taken the leap and decided to upgrade, here are our top tips and tricks for users on our premium subscription, Cronometer Gold!

1. Set Up Your Diary Groups

With our Gold subscription, you can now separate your meals into their own sections. The most popular being breakfast, lunch, dinner but we applaud when our users get creative! You have up to eight Diary Groups to use so take advantage and add supplements, exercise, snacks or more. Don’t forget you can also add and edit timestamps for each of your food entries now as well.

Pro TipS

Click on the green + symbol beside the Diary Group for the quick add menu. You can customize which options show for each Diary Group in More > Diary Settings > Quick Add Group Preferences.

Swipe right to access more functionality like 'create recipe from diary group' or 'copy yesterday's group' if you ate the same thing for lunch the previous day.

2. Keep An Eye On Your Nutrition Scores

Tip number two for Gold users, it’s time to take a look at your Nutrition Scores! These give you a personalized score based on how well you’re hitting certain targets including your vitamin and mineral intake specific for certain functions. Choose to highlight eight of twelve options including bone health, electrolytes, immune support and antioxidants. You can find these under More > Targets > Nutrition Scores on mobile and More > Display on web.

3. Schedule Items On Repeat

Being a Gold subscriber has many perks, but this top notch tip might be the best time saver! With our Repeat Item feature, you can schedule your foods, meals and recipes to repeat and add them to your Diary in just one tap.

Swipe right and tap ⋮ on mobile or right-click on web on any food, meal or recipe entry in your diary and select ‘Repeat’ to set up a recurring food.

4. Leverage Custom Biometrics & Custom Charts

We do have a very wide array of biometrics you can choose from in the basic database but as a Gold user, it’s time to think outside the box! Have you ever wondered how your stress levels correlate with your hunger? Or how sugar intake affects your energy levels? Create a Custom Biometric for stress, energy and hunger to start keeping track!

Pro Tip

Using Custom Charts, you can plot your Custom Biometrics against each other or against any nutrient or Nutrition Score to identify a correlation. Navigate to Discover > Charts and click the ⋮ on mobile, or Trends > Charts on web and select 'Manage Charts'. There, you can set up any charts you'd like to see, but here's some inspo if you don't know where to start.

5. Import Your Favourite Recipes In Three Clicks

One of the latest and greatest Gold features to hit Cronometer is the Recipe Importer! You can copy & paste a URL (or manually copy and paste the text from the recipe) and the app will work its magic. The Recipe Importer automatically finds all of the ingredients, their measurements and creates your own Custom Recipe.

6. Schedule Different Macro Targets

The Target Scheduler feature was a long-awaited addition to our app. Thanks to this feature, you can now create different templates for your macro targets and schedule them for different days of the week. Want to aim to eat more protein on the days you’re working out? Schedule it in! Want to give yourself a ‘cheat day’ on Sundays with a bigger calorie allowance? Schedule it in!

7. Create Meal Or Recipe From Selection

Another little known trick for Gold users is the ‘create meal/recipe from selection’ functionality. From your diary screen, click the three dot menu, select ‘multi-select’, select all of the ingredients you want in your Custom Meal or Custom Recipe, click the three dot menu again and select ‘create meal/recipe from selection’.

The post Tips & Tricks: For The Gold User appeared first on Cronometer Blog.

Tips & Tricks: For The Advanced Cronometer User

Emily Wright — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 20:34:14 +0000

Master The App

Way to go! If you’re landing on this page, we’re making the assumption that you’ve made it past our basics and level up tips and tricks and you’re ready to graduate to a master user. If that’s the case, you’re in the right place. Below we’ll show you some high level tricks to get you one step closer to hacking your health!

1. The ⋮ Menu

On both the mobile and the web app the ⋮ menu on your diary screen can unlock loads of additional functionality. Try the multi-select option on the mobile app to select an entire meal and ‘copy to today’. Or use the ‘mark day complete’ function for easier analysis of your vitamin and mineral intake later on.

2. Negative Serving Sizes

Did you know that on the web app you can log negative servings of food in your diary? This functionality comes in extra handy when you’ve eaten something like a burger without the bun. Log the NCCDB entry for a burger with your fixin’s then log a negative serving for the bun.

3. Changing Cooked Weight

If you’re among one of our many users who treats their kitchen scale like the goddess of truth and accuracy, then this function is for you! There is a functionality within the app that allows you to change the weight of a recipe after it’s been cooked. This helps account for water loss during the cooking process.

When creating a recipe, click on the ‘set cooked recipe weight’ button on mobile or ‘Advanced Info’ on web and plug in the final weight of your recipe for the utmost accuracy in your data!

4. Leverage Your Biometrics

If you want to really step up your Cronometer game, start tracking biometrics such as blood glucose, body temperature, stool & sleep. Some of the devices we sync with will even feed this information into your account automatically. Try a Withings Smart Scale or an Oura Ring.

Use our charts feature to keep track of any trends that can be identified in your behaviour. One of our staff members, Karen likes to track when she gets migraines and plots it against other nutrients (like caffeine or magnesium) to see if there are any patterns.

Pro Tip

By upgrading to our Gold Subscription, you'll be able to create your own Custom Biometrics and see Custom Charts, plotting this data against any data points, across any time period.

5. Home Screen Widgets & Quick Actions

With home screen and lock screen widgets, you can quickly glance at Cronometer data without needing to open the app. Choose from Energy Consumed, Energy Remaining or (for Gold subscribers) Fasting widgets. Learn how on iOS or Android.

Also from the home screen of your phone, you can long-tap on the Cronometer icon and it will bring up quick actions where you can easily select Add Food, Add Exercise, Add Biometric or Scan Barcode.

The post Tips & Tricks: For The Advanced Cronometer User appeared first on Cronometer Blog.

Tips & Tricks: Level Up With The Cronometer App

Emily Wright — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 20:42:33 +0000

Time To Level Up

Congratulations! You’re continuing with your Cronometer journey past the basic first steps and for that, not only are we grateful, but your body will thank you.

If you’ve landed on this page, we’re making the assumption that you’ve already read our Tips & Tricks – Getting Started blog, you’ve logged your first food, created your first recipe and are ready to level up past the basic functionality of the Cronometer mobile or web app.

Below are a few tips & tricks to help you with getting the most of our your Cronometer account:

Leverage Your Nutrition Report

Many of our users chose Cronometer because they want the most detailed, accurate information they can get! There are a couple ways to scroll through these granular details on your vitamin and mineral intake – the Daily Report or the Nutrition Report.

Aptly named, the Daily Report gives you the details for that particular day. In the mobile app, you can find this by clicking on any slide of the top header bar on your diary screen and click ‘daily report’ on the pop up. On web, you can just scroll down on the diary screen to see the day’s intake.

The Nutrition Report will give you a broader scope, averaging your vitamin and mineral intake over the last seven days. On the web app, click Trends > Nutrition Report. On the mobile app, navigate to Discover > Report to see the full breakdown.

Pro Tip

Want to see your Nutrition Report over a longer period of time? Upgrading to our Gold Subscription gives you the ability to see the breakdown over the last month, year or using custom dates.

Click Or Hover To Learn More

Not sure what Folate is or how to get more of it into your diet? Cronometer provides details on each nutrient right in the app!

On the mobile version, from pretty much anywhere in the app, click on the vitamin, mineral or nutrient in question. For the purpose of this demonstration, let’s say click on ‘Folate’ from your Daily Report. This will bring up a screen which allows you to edit your daily target, see your top sources, read an explanation of its function in your body and identify the best sources.

On the web app, simply hover your mouse on the name of the vitamin, mineral or nutrient in question to see the same information.

Use The Barcode Scanner

A fan favourite feature in the Cronometer mobile app is our Barcode Scanner. For the best data, we always encourage our users to log entries from the NCCDB or USDA sources, but we also know that this isn’t always an option.

The Barcode Scanner is a fast, easy (and free!) way to find what you’re looking for. This feature is only available in the mobile app and can be accessed by clicking the + on the diary screen. Select ‘Scan Food’ and hold up the barcode to your phone camera. Cronometer will scan the barcode and search for the item in the database. Our database is rather comprehensive, so if you’re logging something from a popular brand in the USA, chances are it will be in there!

If the item is not in the database, Cronometer will prompt you to take a photo of the packaging and the nutrition label (and will use AI to scan and interpret said label) in order to submit to review from our team. Every entry that is available in the database has been checked over for accuracy and verified by a staff member.

Pro Tip

Even if the food you're trying to log isn't in our database, you can still log it in your diary that day! Navigate through the steps provided, click save and Cronometer will add this as a Custom Food in your account.

Next Level Recipes

If you’re comfortable creating your own Custom Recipes, it’s time to explode! Well, that escalated quickly didn’t it? Here’s how to use Custom Recipes at a higher level.

Always eating the same thing for breakfast? Create a recipe containing your two, three or four coffees (we’re not judging), supplements, eggs and bacon that you eat every morning. This makes it so you can add it all in one click!

You can also ‘explode a recipe’ by swiping right on mobile or right clicking on web, click ‘explode recipe’ and each ingredient of the recipe will be separated into their own diary entry.

Pro Tip

Want to make creating recipes even easier? Upgrade to our Gold Subscription, giving you access to our Recipe Importer. Paste a URL from any recipe site and Cronometer will automatically pull in the ingredients and their measurements!

Personalize Your + Menu

When you tap that orange + button on the bottom of the app, it brings up several options like Add Food, Scan Food, Add Note and more.

Long tap on any of these icons in the menu until they start to wiggle. This will allow you to move the icons around or delete them so you can personalize the menu to better suit your needs.

Next Up...

CronoHacks

Tips & Tricks: For The Advanced Cronometer User

Master The App Way to go! If you’re landing on this page, we’re making the assumption that you’ve made it past our basics and level

The post Tips & Tricks: Level Up With The Cronometer App appeared first on Cronometer Blog.

Tips & Tricks: Getting Started With The Cronometer App

Emily Wright — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 22:23:01 +0000

Welcome to Cronometer!

If you’re new to Cronometer let us be the first to say – welcome aboard! We are thrilled to have you and we feel like we’ve created the perfect app to help you reach your goals. Whether you’re looking to track your protein intake to gain muscle composition, keep an eye on your magnesium and omega 3 for better health or shed a couple pounds, you can count on our nutrition tracker because:

Our data is accurate.

The nutrition information found within our app comes from lab-analyzed sources, such as the NCCDB or USDA. Other nutrition tracking apps will allow users to submit their own entries, meaning there can be multiple options for a single food such as an egg, and each option will have different (and unreliable) nutrition information. We do still allow our users to submit foods into our database, but each entry is checked and verified by a staff member before being made available to the public.

You’re getting detailed information.

Cronometer gives you the ability to scroll through granular details on up to 82 micronutrients, which is more than any other app on the market. Take a deep dive on things like zinc and potassium or lysine and oxalate.

Because using a new app can occasionally be confusing we’ve compiled some tips and tricks so you can get the most out of your Cronometer account.

1. Swipe Right & Left

In the mobile app, you can swipe right or left on any entry in your diary. Swipe left to delete or swipe right to unlock more functionality such as copy & paste or to show more nutrition details.

You can also swipe left on the top header bar of your Diary to view your macros, highlighted targets & more!

2. Sync Apps & Devices

We support integrations with several mobile apps, such as Apple Health, Google Fit, Samsung Health and Strava. We also provide support for many popular wearable devices and activity trackers such as Garmin, Fitbit, WHOOP, Oura and Suunto.

To get the most out of your existing exercise and health data, you can import it into Cronometer. Sync your device and our seamless integration will feed your activity and health data directly into your account.

Pro Tip

If you have a device that isn't on the list, see if it will sync data with Apple Health or Health Connect, then link those with Cronometer.

3. Create A Custom Meal

Within the web or mobile app, you can create a custom meal to make logging the things you eat on a regular basis easier than ever!

Do you drink coffee with a splash of milk and a teaspoon of sugar every morning? Create a meal so you don’t have to add all of the ingredients to your diary separately each time. Navigate to the Foods tab, then click ‘Create Meal’ to get started.

Pro Tip

Always taking the same combination of vitamins or supplements? Create a meal that includes them all to add it in one easy step.

4. Choose Your Food Entries Wisely

When you search for a food, you’ll notice that there are letters, like NCCDB, USDA or CRDB coming up on the right hand side of the screen. This is telling you the source of the nutrition data for that food entry.

To get the most accurate and reliable data, make sure you’re logging with generic entries from the NCCDB or the USDA. Read this blog for more tips on getting the best data.

Pro Tip

Click the orange filter button to bring up more food search options. You can filter out for just NCCDB data entries, sort by most frequent and even enable a multi-add function.

5. Edit Your Targets

Your daily targets for both your macronutrients (carbs, fat, protein) and your micronutrients (all of those vitamins & minerals) are fully customizable. Our default targets aren’t necessarily fit for everyone and we recommend checking with your doctor, nutritionist or dietitian to help tailor them specific to your needs. Edit these in the ‘More’ section of both the web and mobile app.

6. Ask For Help

We have a wonderful community around us here at Cronometer. A handful of staff members and over 9 million users are at the ready and willing to help. If you’re stuck and have a question or just need some straight up motivation, don’t be shy. Reach out to our support team, make a post in our community forums or leverage any of our social media accounts. We’re active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok & YouTube so make sure you toss us a like, a follow and let us know what you think!

Ready To Level Up?

CronoHacks

Tips & Tricks: Level Up With The Cronometer App

Time To Level Up Congratulations! You’re continuing with your Cronometer journey past the basic first steps and for that, not only are we grateful, but

The post Tips & Tricks: Getting Started With The Cronometer App appeared first on Cronometer Blog.