What is the Check Data button and how do I use it?

The CheckData is meant to be a check or method to provide your "due diligence" in validating the data.

For the CheckDatabutton, ‘green’ is meant to indicate that the various nutrients checked in CheckData are consistent; ‘red’ is meant to indicate there is at least one inconsistency.  In a Recipe or user-added Ingredient, when clicking the CheckDatabutton the program will open details of the check.  The CheckData compares:

• Entered Calories compared to estimated calories (based on 4-4-9-7 of carbs, protein, fat, alcohol);
• Entered Total Fat compared to the 4 subcomponents of fat;
• Total Weight compared to sum of the components that comprise total weight (protein, carbs, fat, alcohol, water, ash)

If any of these are outside of the set tolerance (default is 5%, which you can modify), the button indicates red; otherwise, is green.

In terms of troubleshooting or trying to identify any missing values, refer to the Spreadsheet report.  This report is very detailed, and will show each ingredient’s contribution to each nutrient.  Here, you can scan the nutrients column(s), and should be able to readily see if any are missing (noted with double dashes [--]).  For the comparison of Total Weight, look closely at Water and/or Ash, as those nutrients are often not included when adding user-added ingredients.  If no values are missing, perhaps some are undervalued?

A common comparison which occurs often is Calories. Related to this, you may wish to review the KB article on Atwater factors, and other methods of calculating total Calories.

You may also want to check out our tutorial on the use of this feature here