Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink

WikiProject Food and Drink  Discussion

HomeTalk pageMembersOpen tasksAssessmentShowcaseToolsTemplatesStub templatesNewsletters

Mentioning (table) in sections about nutrition

The word "table" appears in parantheses in most sections about nutrition, for example in Sweet potato#Nutrition, Lettuce#Nutritional content, Apple#Nutrition. Sometimes the word "see" is also added, or even "(see adjacent nutrition table)", for example in Orange (fruit)#Nutrition and Chickpea#Nutrition. There are also some pages where it doesn't appear in the text, for example Butternut squash#Nutrition and Falafel#Nutrition. How many times this word appears is also inconsistent, sometimes it's only added after one sentence, sometimes after multiple ones.

To make the articles more consistent and helpful, I would like to establish a consistent style recommendation regarding this. My first intuition is that it isn't useful in most cases where the table is very close to the text, so I don't think it's worth mentioning it explicitly. In the exceptional cases where the table cannot be moved closer to the text of the nutrition section, I would recommend giving a bit more directional help - something like "(see table above/below)". This should only appear after the first sentence. What do you think, is this a good style recommendation, or do you have a different idea? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

We normally don't direct readers to tables, figures, images, etc. I agree with you that it should not be mentioned explicitly (unless there is some very unusual circumstance involved). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Except for the USDA table used in most WP food articles discussing nutrient contents, reliable sources don't exist. The (table) serves the purpose of guiding a general non-science user to all the nutrient data available and the USDA source linked at the bottom of each table. Many nutrition sections also present a Daily Value reference for individual nutrients. Although the DV is US-centric, it is used as a reference for food labeling by other countries, and is a simple way of expressing individual nutrient contents that consumers see on food labels.

Over years, users have inserted a [citation needed] tag for a nutrient content of interest or used a food blog as a source with unreliable misleading content. There is no harm in simplifying a nutrition section with a (table) to guide general users to the USDA data and link. How it's shown or expressed are a matter of choice to an editor, requiring no need for standardization. Zefr (talk) 03:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense, but I think it would be even better if we had an actual citation to the relevant USDA page, since I can easily imagine some people still thinking a reference is needed instead of the "(table)" text.

To make this easy, do you think it would be a good idea (assuming it's possible) to develop a new citation template that would simply take its content from the Template:Infobox nutritional value? It seems like Template:Infobox nutritional value could also use some improvements, so that the displayed "Source: USDA FoodData Central" link will redirect to the specific food item's page, rather than to the home page (for example, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169296/nutrients instead of https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/index.html). Bendegúz Ács (talk) 18:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

1) The template for the nutrition infobox calculates and displays the DV, whereas a direct ref to the USDA table provides raw nutrient data, a result of numbers likely having little meaning to most users. We should stay with the template - it is informative for all potential nutrients of interest, depending on how the template is filled out. Referring to it in the text or not is a simple editorial choice.

2) FoodData Central was revised from the main database in 2019 to provide direct links of nutrient data to specific foods, and is the preferred use for the template. Some articles may still retain the pre-2019 URL to the home page or former National Nutrient Database. This can be changed by editing the food-specific URL with copy/paste. Zefr (talk) 18:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

1. I understand and agree with your reasoning on why it's currently inferior to use a regular citation to the USDA website rather than directing users to the table. Based on this, my suggestion would be a new template that takes the user to the table when clicked and would be rendered as a citation. For example, this is the original Butternut squash#Nutrition:
Baked butternut squash is 88% water, 11% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), it supplies 167 kilojoules (40 kilocalories) of food energy, and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin A (70% DV), with moderate amounts of vitamin C (18% DV) and vitamin B₆ (10% DV) (table).
And this would be with the new template:
Baked butternut squash is 88% water, 11% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat. In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), it supplies 167 kilojoules (40 kilocalories) of food energy, and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin A (70% DV), with moderate amounts of vitamin C (18% DV) and vitamin B₆ (10% DV).
would take the user to the "Butternut squash, baked" table, which will probably require inserting an {{anchor}} for nutritional value templates. What do you think, would this be an improvement?
2. Yes, the URL is there, but it has to be provided in the Note parameter, for example: [https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169296/nutrients Link to USDA Database entry]. Instead, it would be more convinient, if only the ID (169296) or the URL would have to be provided and the same link (Link to USDA Database entry) would be rendered automatically.
Hankwang, Waddie96, Thumperward, Plastikspork, Primefac, Ans As significant contributors to the Template:Infobox nutritional value, do you have any opinion about these potential improvements? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

These suggestions would not be an improvement. In the current use of having a short nutrition description with the full nutrition table available, high-content nutrients are highlighted in the text, and low-content nutrients are displayed in the table, also providing useful, easy-to-see information as the %DV. For a food like spinach with diverse nutrients in rich, moderate and low contents, the description section would be unwieldy with citations. There is no problem with the current use of nutrient descriptions accompanied by a nutrition table, as has existed for many years. The proposal is a WP:AINTBROKE idea. Zefr (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

"the description section would be unwieldy with citations": My suggestion is to replace "(table)" with the citations, not to add citations after every sentence.

"There is no problem with the current use of nutrient descriptions accompanied by a nutrition table, as has existed for many years.": Again, I don't have any issues with the overall layout. The only problem is how one references the other.

"The proposal is a WP:AINTBROKE idea": Both WhatamIdoing and I find the "(table)" convention problematic, which constitutes the majority in this discussion, and all the inconsistencies I pointed out above support this as well. Bendegúz Ács (talk) 21:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I’ve edited {{Infobox nutritional value}} so that a citation always appears at the bottom without having to specify a source, call for it manually by specifying a value for source_usda or source_USDA or source, unless noRDA is specified to suppress the message at the bottom. I would value your feedback. waddie96 ★ (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Great, thank you! Would it be a further improvement if the reference was pointing to the specific entry, rather than the home page of Food Data Central? For example, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169296/nutrients instead of https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/. Bendegúz Ács (talk) 22:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

At the bottom of each nutrition table is the statement "Link to USDA Database entry" which contains the specific FDC URL for the food, such as here for butternut squash. Having another link to the same FDC page is unnecessarily redundant. Zefr (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

In this case the "Link to USDA Database entry" would not be needed at all, and the "note" parameter could be used more appropriately - as its description says: "Any explanatory notes, e.g., which parts of the vegetable are edible". Bendegúz Ács (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm assuming your code was this: | source_USDA | source_usda | source | no_RDA | but do not see an example among several food nutrition tables how it is used when the specific FDC URL is already in place.

At the bottom of each nutrition table is the footnote: †Percentages estimated using US recommendations (the "DRI" for individual nutrients) for adults.[ref] where the ref goes to the FDC search page. That ref to the search page isn't useful because it is for food searching, not for DRI values. Zefr (talk) 22:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

With respect to a citation template that just links to an internal page anchor: I don't think that's a good idea. If you're going to use a citation template then you might as well use it to link to the FDA site itself. I dislike articles that seem to treat the concept of directing readers to the information they want as some sort of adventure. I do strongly agree that we should, however, just be using citations instead of self-referential things like "see table" which are both fragile and invalid in various contexts. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply! There was an argument above that the problem with citations is that the daily values are not stated/calculated in the original source, but they are in the table. Considering this, do you still think it's best to just use the citations overall? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 18:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

If the data is in the table, it has to be coming from somewhere. We should just link to whatever that source is directly. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:34, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The % daily values (%DV) are calculated from the nutrition content of the specific food, and the recommended daily value. Both of them can be sourced, but only separately, meaning the calculated % value doesn't show up on any reliable reference, it is only calculated by the table. For example, considering the calcium content of butternut squash: it contains 41 mg ([1]) and the recommended daily value is 1300 mg ([2]), so the %DV is $41mg/1300mg=3\%$. The table calculates this automatically.

With this in mind, do you think referencing the nutrition content (e.g. [3]) is enough when mentining the %DV in the text (e.g. 3%)? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Is being a female winemaker "defining"?

Comments please (and ideally sources) at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2024_March_18#Category:American_female_winemakers. Johnbod (talk) 01:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

This was relisted at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 March 26#Category:American female winemakers and eventually ended up being kept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Undo food and drink categorization on Jonah Crab article?

I was looking at the Jonah Crab talk page and I noticed that it has the food and drink categorization. I will research how to undo, but I don't truly know if it is a mistake or if it is a commonly eaten crab in some cultures, but this is probably a mistake. Edit, I fucked up. Sorry. how to delete? 2abc3 (talk) 19:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Notability guidelines for food items

Hello everyone, I think we need to make it more clear that recipes are not suitable sources for food articles. I've nominated several different food articles (mainly cakes and salads) that have absolutely no notability and still have to explain to editors that the existence of recipes for a food doesn't make that specific food notable. Can we work on an essay or something to put this into writing somewhere? BaduFerreira (talk) 02:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it will help, because WP:Nobody reads the directions.

But if you want to move in that direction, you'd probably need to spell out exactly what counts as "a recipe" and what doesn't. Otherwise, some editors will say "Those four paragraphs of text explaining the history and cultural significance of this dish are part of 'the recipe' and don't count towards notability" and others will take the opposite extreme, and you'll really be no better off than you are now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I would support having this as a guideline/essay, but similarly to what @WhatamIdoing mentioned, I also feel like the distinction would be difficult to make. For example, I recently used this source: [4]. This page contains an introductory text and a recipe - how should we decide if pages like this are okay?

Another concern I have is what reliable sources can be used for articles in this Wikiproject if no recipes are allowed. There might be some reliable books on cuisines and similar cooking/food-related topics that are not just a collection of recipes, but I suspect the majority of editors don't have access to those.

One idea is that we might want to allow recipes for certain content, but not for all. For example, they could be insufficient to establish notability.

Overall, I feel like what we're missing is not just a guideline/essay for avoiding recipes, but a more comprehensive one that explains what sources to use for articles about food and drink, where WP:RS might be especially hard to satisfy. Bendegúz Ács (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Beginning on your account's six-month anniversary, you'll be able to log in to Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library and find some great sources. I suggest starting by finding the "Oxford Reference" series in the list of resources. Click on that to access the collection, which has some great encyclopedias about food and drink. Then search for the name of the article you're working on.

Speaking of simple rules of thumb for notability, if there's an entry in any of their food/drink encyclopedias, that should probably be taken as proof of notability by itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see any issue with that source. The Guardian is a reliable publisher and that source is written by a seemingly notable food critic Joanna Blythman. My issue with using recipes as sources are the overwhelming amount of recipes that are hosted on personal blogs that I've found used as sources for Wikipedia articles. For example, I recently came across Cassava cake and Bánh khoai mì which suffer from this issue of using personal blog recipes for the bulk of their article content. I won't be nominating these for deletion as I don't have the cultural or linguistic background to properly gauge whether these specific dishes are notable, but it does worry me that we potentially have thousands of articles that suffer from this issue of improper sourcing potentially lending undeserved notability. BaduFerreira (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I think generally we need to consider what is really a distinct food product and what is a variation of something else. Many of the articles you've nominated already fell into a particular concept but just used particular ingredients in a particular way, so the difference could be easily covered in another article. Other examples I've merged are Seafood cocktail and Escabeche oriental. About recipes, we need to consider if it's from a journalistic source with an edited description or something out of a cookbook, whether the food is a specific and widely identifiable or closely related to a broader concept. Reywas92^Talk 21:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I've noticed a number of separate articles that just need someone to boldly merge them into Nut roll. The specific content usually amounts to a nut roll, but the editor's grandmother was from a different country, so it has a different name and perhaps a variation of one or two ingredients. I expect that's true for many others. There's no value in deleting them; they just need Wikipedia:Merging. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment of what a proper recipe-containing source is. Ultimately, this is just a matter of WP:GNG. Reliable sources that speak in-depth about a specific dish or meal and contain a recipe are fine, whereas "sources" that are hosted on someone's blog about how to bake some specific cake or prepare some stew are not. BaduFerreira (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Personal blogs are generally not reliable, unless they meet the exceptions outlined in WP:SPS.

However, WP:NEXIST says that what matters is whether the real world has the sources (newspapers, magazines, books, academic journals...), and not whether the current version of the Wikipedia article cites sources that demonstrate notability. When you see a Wikipedia article sourced entirely to personal blogs, that may be annoying, but it doesn't tell us anything about whether the subject is notable. Unfortunately, for foods, a useful WP:BEFORE search sometimes requires some specialized knowledge. A simple web search usually produces lots of unreliable (or just useless) sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

New list of lists

• Lists of Michelin starred restaurants

Improvements welcome! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Why not a navigation template? The Banner talk 15:23, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Some of these are already linked at Michelin_Guide#Guides. I'd suggest adding any missing and redirecting. Reywas92^Talk 22:32, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Subway article updates

Hello editors,

My name is Paige, and I work for Subway and have requested updates to the article due to my COI. I have had an open request on the Subway Talk page for a while now and I thought editors here at Wikiproject Food and Drink would be interested in it, especially regarding updates to Subway's menu. Editors felt my proposed updates sounded too promotional, but when I sought feedback, I did not get a response on how to improve it. I think these updates will help the page and I would like to work with editors to update the menu in a way that is not promotional. I can answer any question on the Talk page. Thank you PHSubway (talk) 13:25, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Gnudi

Hi guys, would anyone like to help me with this page? JacktheBrown (talk) 01:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @JackkBrown. Have you looked at w:it:Gnudi (gastronomia)? It says something about the regions of Tuscany where the dish originated from. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)