[coldtea]

>I have a theory that 'calorie counters' are shockingly inaccurate (one other poster mentioned a 25% margin is 'fine'!)

Accurate or inaccurate is only meaningful related to the task and its requirements. 25% can be totally acceptable margin of error for the task. We use even bigger margins in lots of ventures (determining which startup will have a succesful exit to fund, for one).

And yes, the mere act of quantifying helps. But quantifying with even 25% error is still better than just writing down "ate 5 cakes", especially if one doesn't eat too many repeats of the same food.

Not sure in what reasoning one can complain for a method with 25% margin of error (say), but be OK with a method like "5 cakes" which still applies quantification, just in an even more vague and hazy sense.

5 cakes is much worse than 5 carrots, for example, but with merely writing down how many you ate, you have to rely on a far more relative guesstimation of their relative harm than you would be if you were counting their calories and being off by 25%).

[jackvalentine]

> Not sure in what reasoning one can complain for a method with 25% margin of error (say), but be OK with a method like "5 cakes" which still applies quantification, just in an even more vague and hazy sense.

One method implies rigour and the other one is honest about what it is setting out to do

[coldtea]

But you seem to be the only one assuming and/or bringing up rigor in this discussion.

Everybody said it's a quick ballpark figure / back of the envelope style calculation.

The mere fact "cake bad, carrots good" everybody knows. It's not much information concerning "Did I ate too much today?". One can have a caloric budget and stay within it (more or less) without having to be perfect in measurements (or sticking to carrot because it's easier to know its light).