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by hombre_fatal 445 days ago
The problem with OpenFoodFacts is that it just has nutrition label info for packaged goods.

So, very little nutrient info beyond calories and protein. No info about micronutrients. No info about minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids.

It's useless for nutrition tracking since if you're eating packaged food, then you already have that information yourself.

It doesn't answer basic questions like "I ate 100g of extra firm tofu, how did it move me towards my daily mineral/vitamin targets?"
2 comments
sodality2 445 days ago
> So, very little nutrient info beyond calories and protein. No info about micronutrients. No info about minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids.

Many items do have these things.

https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/5060495116377/huel-b...

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hombre_fatal 445 days ago
That is one exception, and it's only because Huel reports that info since it's a fortified meal replacement product. The same way a multivitamin would have that info on its label.

But consider that OpenFoodFacts can't give you that info on just about anything else, especially not basic foods like "apples" or "tofu" or "chicken breast".

I'm not dumping on the project. It's really useful to have a database of packaged food labels. It's just not trying to solve this problem.

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NewJazz 445 days ago
You can add micro nutrients to those foods, they just don't always have them. Or so I thought.
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teolemon 445 days ago
Hi, Pierre, Open Food Facts NGO co-founder. We have an issue to propose approximation of micro-nutrients from reputable database. Feel free to join the project and contribute your time/coding skills to help us solve this: https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server/issues...
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joshdickson 445 days ago
Your other comment is too deep in the thread for me to reply, but just wanted to say I appreciate you checking out the project and commenting, and appreciate the many years of effort you've undertaken in this space. How OpenNutrition can work with OpenFoodFacts is something I have thought a lot about (I think MacroFactor set a great example) and it's certainly something I'll consider moving forward.
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