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I think if you know that your ingredient (say green peppers) is equal to one cup chopped (1 whole green pepper is probably pretty close to 1 cup chopped) then when you choose it out of the calorie section to calculate the calories you will get that calculation, then when you write out the specific ingredients and the directions you can specify that you are using a whole pepper, not chopped. I've done that for a few different recipes when I can't find specifically what I am looking for - I find as close as I can to gather the calories in the item and then be particular in the description and directions.
Erica
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| I actually like having to enter the ingredients twice, if only because it makes it easier to deal with the discrepancies in measurements. To use the example of the green peppers in this thread, you can weigh the peppers and enter the amount in grams for the nutrition tracker, and then enter "8 green peppers" for the ingredients that will be read by other people. It makes it easier to standardize the visible ingredients list, in my experience.
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PIXBADGIRL
4/23/07 7:49 P
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| I have been very pleased so far with both the food tracker and the recipe calculator. Sometimes I will have to look up food through other sources, but this site is by far the easiest I have found to work in, as well as the most helpful all around.
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| I echo the comments about submitting recipes and ingredients; I decided pretty early on that I wasn't going to use the meal tracker tool for that reason. I've been a long-time user of MasterCooks - the defacto standard for recipes on the Internet - and find it to be not only a fairly easy tool for entering recipes and ingredients, but also to be very useful for doing "what ifs" related to nutritional enhancements. I'd like to see Virtual Food Pro adopt MasterCooks or the equivalent - and to add ingredients to flax seed meal and xylitol to the database.
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ALANAHODGSON
4/23/07 3:39 P
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| In reference to your Peanut Butter statement, if you go to the Resource Center and click the nutrition section, there is a food converter that allows you to convert cups to tablespoons or vise versa or whatever measurement you heart desires. I understand that its another step in the process, but if you want to make the site work for you, that option is available.
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BGLADDEN1
4/20/07 10:42 A
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Oh ... prior to Denise Austin and SparkPeople, I didn't cook, so I rely on all you other people for recipes. LOL I was a big supporter of restaurant owners. So, thank you to all you people who do enter the recipes. 
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| Agreed, I don't care for entering the ingredients twice either. It is a tedious process.
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ELAINEMOMMA
4/19/07 9:32 P
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| I was talking about entering a recipe that is not already entered. Like when you submit one of your recipes for nutritional breakdown or if you want to share a recipe that you have with other sparkers. Once the recipe is in the file it is very easy to use in the tracker.
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| I may be confused on what you are talking about, but it is very easy to add the recipes (if somebody else has already entered it for you). When I'm in the actual recipe posting, I click on "Add to Food Tracker" or whatever it says. Then, when I go back to my food tracker box, I click on "Add to my Favorites". Then, the next time I fix that recipe, I just click on the "Favorites" tab in the "Add a Food" box, and find the recipe.
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I also found entering recipes to be tedious at best. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of recipes available.
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ELAINEMOMMA
4/6/07 9:20 P
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| I like the recipe site but I think it would be easier if you only had to enter the recipe once instead of entering the ingredients twice in 2 separate places. Then you could either calculate and add to my recipe box or calculate and share...it would save a lot of time. Also with regard to the pepper thing...Bananas, oranges apples and potatos come in different sizes too so what is wrong with small, medium or large as with the other items mentioned? Only a couple of suggestions. I really like the content of the site, it makes things much easier to keep track of too. By the way there are loads of great recipes...Thanks
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BGLADDEN1
3/30/07 10:57 P
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| For packaged products, the way I handle tracking my food (a little trouble, but I like counting the correct calories) is to look at the package to find out how many calories is in a service and then adjust the quantity until it matches. Instead of 1 or 2 ounces, I might have to enter 1.3 ounces to get the calories to match.
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STERNENFEE
3/30/07 7:20 P
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As for the peppers: why don't you just weigh them and enter their weight in grams? That should solve all your problems.
The only thing I don't like is when people submit recipes and they're incomplete.
They just list the ingredients, no amounts, no instructions on how to make the meal.
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HANNAHBOBANA
3/29/07 12:22 P
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| I don't know if this has been mentioned but I would like to see a quick link right on the Nutrition page, where you enter your food diary or at least at the right column where you get the daily features. It's time consuming to have to go to the resource centre, click on recipe calculator, the scroll down to click on the site and then on the Sparkrecipe link. Crazy amount of steps to get to the site from within Sparkpeople!
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| Love the recipie site. Yes you have to do a little figuring every once in awhile--but I have used other sites and this is by far one of the easiest to work with! So--a little extra work is well worth the effort! Thanks! Oh yeah...and what is this sight costing me to use?
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AMARANTHA
3/29/07 12:04 A
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 My basic point about the stars is that the people posting comments with no stars are doing so, IMO, because that option is available and stated as an option on the site. I like reading the comments and don't care about the stars, so from my perspective, that works out well.
I did understand the original question about measurements, can understand frustration if a cup of Peanut Butter is required to be listed as 16 tablespoons, especially if one is not accustomed to using this measuring system.
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Faith - I think what they are trying to say is that you have to enter the foods at the top and a serving size of Peanut Butter is in TBS BUT these are only for the Nutritional information. The person who is writing the recipe then can enter it on the INGREDIENT List (second section) as the 1 CUP option.
I have been finding TONS of recipies that don't list all the ingredients, I Think that they assume it will be there when the enter the foods for the Nutritional tracker part.
Beckie
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DJHEILMANN
3/28/07 3:27 P
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W8FALNOFF
My guess is that we do not have "whole peppers" as a tracking option since peppers can come in many sizes, thus would have different nutritional values. I do understand your frustration tho.
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I am happy with the recipes on the site, I just am not happy with the way the page is for submitting a recipe, it should be in cups, per unit.
Like I said, I tried to submit a recipe for some STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS, AND YOU CAN'T VERY WELL STUFF 1 CUP OF SLICED GREEN PEPPERS!
I don't think some of you are understanding the initial complaint, it had nothing to do with the recipes you can get off the site and cook it has to do with submitting and bringing up the ingredients to a recipe. That is what this whole complaint was about.....
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Hmmm ... I don't know ...
The example I gave with the 3, 5 and no-star ratings was from one of my recipes and seemed to work out correctly .... but with a 4 and a no-star giving you a 3, I don't know how they are calculating it.
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Stars, um no...they should be included. It's not a math averaging, it doesn't throw it off far enough to be that, but it definitely affects the rating.
I have a recipe for instance, that is rated twice. Once with 4 stars, once with none. It shows up as a three. If the no star isn't averaged in, then how would you explain the difference?
Both ratings have comments attached.
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I've found the lack of measurement options frustrating as well, especially on some of the ingredients that only contain metric info (grams). Those are no help at all to me! LOL
Also - if you need, say, a cup of peanut butter, it would be a lot easier to put that in than having to say 16 tbsp! Not everyone automatically knows those measurements.
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It appears that statistically the 'no star' ratings do NOT affect the overall numeric rating of the recipe. I think they are simply left out and are not figured in as zeros.
If you do the math on one that has say a 3 star rating, and a 5 star rating and a no star rating, you'll see that it shows up as a "4 out of 5" which would be 3+5 divided by 2 ... not as "2.6 out of 5" like it would if you added 3+0+5 and divided by 3 (the number of ratings).
However, if there are ratings without COMMENTS those do not show up at the bottom of the recipe but ARE included in the calculation ... so it may be hard to tell the exact math if there are ratings without comments.
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Well, if you don't do the stars, it makes the recipe star rating lower. So, it looks like it isn't all that good when you're scanning through a list of recipes, unless you actually read the comments that say it is.
I think it's meant to do both, or it wouldn't average in the ones with none.
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AMARANTHA
3/28/07 10:29 A
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Hi!  I just wanted to throw in that a) I love the recipe site, but of course everyone is entitled to an opinion, and b) re the stars, I've been leaving them out lately because it seems to me that the instructions give one the option to rate AND/OR leave a comment. So it seems to me that comments without stars are also a part of the concept. I noticed there are a lot of comments without stars and I've just assumed that people wanted to say something but not do the rating.
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I have to add a lot of my own stuff, but think it is WELL worth the effort. Also, a nutritional scale has been a really really really good investment to help me be accurate and stay on track in the kitchen. It's taking time to get used to grams, but it's VERY accurate and available for most ingredients.
I am getting annoyed with people forgetting to put stars when rating recipes, it throws off the average rating. Can it be fixed later? How do you even ask someone to make the correction (if it can be made) if they don't have a Spark Page?
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16 Tablespoons in 1 cup
3 Teaspoons in 1 Tablespoon
48 Teaspoons in 1 Cup
I do agree that some improvements could be made ... but I'm happy to have the resource available.
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I guess I would have just figured out how many TBS are in a CUP to make the nutritional information correct. YOU have to write in the 1 Cup in the ingredient list.
Beckie
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I agree the site is good But unless you enter something as a new food then you can't put an accurate amount because sometimes the options you have are limited.
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Unfortunately, I have to agree with the person above who is complaining about not being able to put in right measurements for things. I am happy to have the options of being able to calculate recipes but it would be more accurate if you could just give more choices of what you can use. (ex: green peppers)
I also find this problem when adding a food to the Nutrition Tracker also.
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DJHEILMANN
3/27/07 12:19 P
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Thanks for the feedback. We have different measures for different foods, hopefully for most foods you find what you need. My guess is that green peppers aren't measured "per pepper" is that they can be varying sizes. Also, I did a search for Peanut Butter and found a measurement for cup, maybe you can give it another try.
We feel most members are very happy with the recipe calculator, we're sorry if you are not.
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W8FALNOFF
3/27/07 11:08 A
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I have tried to submit several recipes, 1 being stuffed green peppers but when you choose the green peppers it only gives you options of chopped, by the cup or sliced.
You cannot pick just 8 green peppers.
And then with Peanut Butter it only gives you the option of TBSP., what if a recipe calls for 1 cup.
The site is terrible and needs improvement...
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