| | Water Fasting

Nutrient Counting

Hi nutrition community. I’m trying to really consciously plan out meals but now have shaken faith in certain tools or labels accurately reporting how many nutrients are in foods, both processed and organic. Protein, carbs, fiber, vitamins, minerals - does anyone have any recommendations on sites or apps that you trust to correctly tell you how much of everything healthy is in any given food? MyFitnessPal is all over the place depending on what you pick, I just need a good average or low estimate so I can plan meals that give me enough nutrients. While we’re on the subject does anyone have a guide on how to figure out how much of each nutrient we need? Thanks much

Answer

Over the last several years, the public health message have shifted away from desired percentages of protein, fats and carbohydrates. Focus on foods that are nutrient-dense. Here’s specific language:

 

‘An underlying premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that nutritional needs should be met primarily from foods and beverages—specifically, nutrient-dense foods and beverages. Nutrient-dense foods provide vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting components and have no or little added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. A healthy dietary pattern consists of nutrient-dense forms of foods and beverages across all food groups, in recommended amounts, and within calorie limits.

The core elements that make up a healthy dietary pattern include:

• Vegetables of all types—dark green; red and orange; beans, peas, and lentils; starchy; and other vegetables

• Fruits, especially whole fruit

• Grains, at least half of which are whole grain

• Dairy, including fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese, and/or lactose-free versions and fortified soy beverages and yogurt as alternatives

• Protein foods, including lean meats, poultry, and eggs; seafood; beans, peas, and lentils; and nuts, seeds, and soy products

• Oils, including vegetable oils and oils in food, such as seafood and nuts’

 

The 2020-2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines, Executive Summary

Answer

Of all the years I’ve been tracking food, I’ve learned that all tools suck. Even if you have the nutrition info for (say) a pizza at Dominos, there’s no way to know if they made the pizza EXACTLY as outlined in their info guide. Best to do is just take them as “best guess estimates.” I stick with MFP mostly, but I still double-check all macros in anything I add.

As for guides for macros, there’s a good amount of macro calculators online. The one I like is from BodyBuilding (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macronutrients_calculator.htm). Many of them say similar ratios (40/40/20 for weight loss), but it’s good to have a baseline.

Answer

A big point a lot of people miss, is that The accuracy of the tool isn’t as relevant as the consistency of the tool. Outside of a laboratory, you cannot accurately account for calorie count in foods. That is actually not relevant. If you always use the same program or the same measurements for foods and you generally eat within a certain parameter of variety of foods then what matters more to achieving your long-term goals is your consistency with the numbers that are available to you. My fitness pal totally sucks since they were purchased several years ago. But that is mostly because of other functions or lack there of in the free version.

Answer

Published guidelines may be a good place to start but we all need to accept the reality that everyone is different and there are differences in what one person ‘needs’ as compared to the next. Many years ago I logged everything I ate, my supplements, sleep, exercise, etc., in exhaustive detail and compared that to my general health, mental wellness, and fitness. You can learn a lot about yourself and your body’s needs in this regard. Everything else, especially broad general guidelines, are just guessing. Some of these guesses are based on science, yes, but there are not based on everyone in the world’s unique needs.