BigOven

Something in the nutritional database is seriously messed up! i imported the "Pork Steak Bake" recipe from the website, since it was simple.  i tried the auto link, and it did not work, so i linked each ingredient, paying careful attention to the quantities of each, ie grams in the links i was making. 

Still, the program tells me that 4 servings of this contain calories: 687257%/13745136 !!!!!!!

seriously, i want to make a crack about this, but 13 million calories is so far off the planet i can't think of anything!

Drew, something is definitely not right in the data you're assigning there.

I've taken your example recipe from the archive (I think it's called "Porky Steak Beak"), and got the following in my quick example:

207 calories per serving (not 13 million :-))

68 calories from fat

12% total fat

Total carbs 10%

As with all nutrition analysis software, the links you choose for somewhat arbitrarily written ingredient lines are a matter of judgement.

We agree that when you get a result with over a million calories, something is obviously pretty wrong there in the inputs; my guess is that you've got some error in either the serving size, the assignment, or the gram weight of one or more ingredients. 

Double check each ingredient line.  If you can report back as to exactly which assignments (and how many grams) you are assigning, that'd help us reproduce this on our side and help out.

For example, here are the links I chose:

1 lb Pork Steak - 1 lb "PORK, CURED, HAM, STEAK, BNLESS, EX LN, UNHTD"  (though the author may have meant something else by this -- I chose this just because I was in a bit of a hurry on the calculation, just as an example.)

15 ox can Stewed Tomatoes - TOMATOES, CRUSHED, CANNED

1/2 Package French cut green beans - BEANS, SNAP, GREEN, RAW

1/2 cup dugers salsa - SAUCE, LA VICTORIA, GRN SALSA JALAPENA

1 teaspoon chicken base - SOUP, CHICK BROTH OR BOUILLON, DHYD< DRY

2 teaspoons olive oil - OIL, OLIVE, SALAD OR COOKING

As with all nutrition analysis software, the nutritional amounts that you get are entirely dependent upon how you assign the ingredient lines in the recipe. 

BigOven gives you the tools to calculate this, but you must assign the ingredient lines and amounts, and you must carefully check the associations its making and/or you tell it to make. 

That's because BigOven was deliberately designed to let you analyze recipes with ingredient lines written in an arbitrary, flexible way (because of our web tie-in -- that is, so you can access and import any of the 170,000+ recipes posted by all kinds of people around the world, in all kinds of different ways).  We reasoned that a significant fraction of folks don't want nutrition information, and wouldn't want to be bogged down by writing ingredients in a straightjacket-kind of way.

What were your specific linkings?  I'd be happy to try it here.

well, with some further looking i found part of the problem...

when i was asked to input the measures for a can of tomatoes, i created 1 can = 425 grams and saved the measure.  Then when it went back to the ingredient details, in this recipe there are approx 1 can, and below that it says 1 can = 42949673 edible grams! 

after some tinkering, i got it to display 1 can = 425, but i don't know how. 

during this exercise i noticed that the measures tool does have an error.  if you select water in the estimator, and enter 1 and any of the measures that have a decimal, it drops the decimal in the displayed result and when you paste it.

with that fixed, i got: 418 calories, 187 from fat, 33% total fat, 90mg cholesterol

as for the links i chose, i used:

1 lb Pork Steak - 16 oz "PORK,FRSH,SHLDR,BLADE,BOSTON (ROASTS OR STEAKS),LN&FAT,RAW"  [because it was all braised in, and 1 pound is likely more than 1 steak]

15 ox can Stewed Tomatoes - TOMATOES, CRUSHED, CANNED

1/2 Package French cut green beans - BEANS,FRENCH,MATURE SEEDS,CKD,BLD,W/SALT [ i was thinking canned green beans were the closest nutritionally?]

1/2 cup dugers salsa - SAUCE,LA VICTORIA,LA VICTORIA GRN CHILE SALSA,MILD

1 teaspoon chicken base - SOUP,CHICK BROTH CUBES,DEHYD,DRY

2 teaspoons olive oil - OIL, OLIVE, SALAD OR COOKING

after fixing the bouillon, i got 389 cal, 169 fat, 30% fat, 71mg chol.

which i think is reasonably accurate, thank you.

Glad to hear -- can you email us (support at bigoven.com) a screenshot of the water/estimator part that you're referring to, and we'll take a look.  Thanks much.  Have a great rest of your weekend.