Mariner Software MacGourmet Deluxe - Manual (Page 78)

All of these would ultimately map to “Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat
only, raw” but each variation would have to be mapped by hand before a calcu-
lation could be done properly. Any new variations would also have to be
mapped. However, if all of the variants were replaced with “boneless, skinless
chicken breasts” and that description was used in most recipes, work would be
saved. This isn’t always possible of course, but the more standardized your in-
formation, the less work you’ll have when you do a calculation.
Another point worth mentioning: your choice of mappings can effect the accu-
racy of your calculations. Sometimes a mapping that initially seems to make
sense, won’t when the calculation is done. You’ll see this when you press the
Calculate button and the Weight Resolver is displayed. This is normal, because
as described previously, if you have “1 egg” in your recipe, the calculation
needs to know the size of the egg you are using.
Sometimes none of the resolver options seem to be appropriate. For example:
a recipe calls for “1 can chili, no beans” which you map to “HORMEL chili, No
beans, canned entree” in the nutrition database. When you go to calculate your
information however, you are given the following options: 1 cup, 1 package
yields, 1 serving. None of these resolutions are totally appropriate. Why? Well “1
can” cannot be converted to 1 cup, because there is no way to know from that
description how many cups are in a can. The same thing applies to the other
resolutions. In this case, it’s a good idea to look for something more appropri-
ate for your mapping. If nothing appropriate seems to be found, you should
consider changing the ingredient to say “2 cups chili, about 1 can” because a
weight for “1 cup” is one of the available options. If you do either of these,
you’ll be able to resolve the weight and calculate the correct values for the in-
gredient.
Typically, if your ingredients have measurements like “1 can” or “1 package,”
it’s better for calculating nutrition if you change the ingredient measurement to
include the amount, in cups, tablespoons, etc., adding the package or can value
as an ingredient direction instead.
Another example:
Your recipe calls for something like “1 salmon filet, about 1 1/2 pounds.” Your
results will be better if you change the ingredient to be “1 1/2 pounds salmon,
one filet” instead, because there is no straightforward way to map “1 salmon
filet” to the nutritional database weight of “1/2 filet.” Why? Well 1/2 filet in the
nutritional database is 159g. So to get an accurate calculation, the “filet” needs
to be entered using that number, so you’d have to figure out how the filet in
the recipe properly equates to the database weight, and adjust accordingly. If
you do the conversion to “1 1/2 pounds” everything is taken care of for you.
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