How to keep track of all your nutrition info

Epicurious.com

I've visited sites that tell me how many calories are in an apple. That's useful but limited. What if I need the information about two apples and I'm bad at math? What if I want to specify it's a small apple? Or a really large one? More important, I tend to give up trying to track my nutrition because I hate typing in so many keywords (apple, banana, Total cereal, coffee, etc.). And I really detest the subsequent cutting and pasting of results into a spreadsheet or Word document to tally a day's intake. Recently, I found a better system. And it comes from sibling site NutritionData.com, which just redesigned and relaunched some killer new apps.

In a nutshell (you know I love food references, right?), I can search for almost any food I've ever eaten (raw, cooked or even at a chain restaurant) and save these searches. Here's how it works...

Visit the site (logged in or not) and you'll see a "NEW" icon near something called "MyND." The pull-down menu gives you lots of options. Basically, like many sites, NutritionData allows you to personalize, and save, your searches. So you can keep lists of:

  • All the foods you eat, in a long list

  • All your recipes (once added to the site, you can save, search, and analyze)

  • All the calories you eat in a day (add, delete, update anytime)

  • All the categories you want to include AND exclude in searches (no baby food for me, for example)

And more. I'm just getting started.

Note: If you kept a pantry on this site before, the information is still there. It hasn't disappeared. For more about the site, the redesign, the new functionality, check out these notes.

And if you know of a more detail-oriented nutrition site, I'll eat my hat. Or at least something else low in carbs.



James Oliver Cury is the executive editor of Epicurious.com. He is a member of the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Committee and has been a judge at the Culinary Institute of America, the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Championship, and the Food Network's Iron Chef show. He's written for dozens of magazines, including Esquire, Playboy, Details, Entertainment Weekly, Maxim, Men's Journal, SPIN, Glamour , US Magazine, Food & Wine, and Every Day with Rachael Ray.



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