Wellness #39: Nutrition

I spent quite a bit of time trying to use NutritionData.com, but didn't like the site very much. Maybe part of the problem was that our internet connection at the branch is running slowly right now. I tried to use the BMI and Daily Needs Calculator, but it would never respond, so I didn't get any information from that.

I was interested in the article about ways to cut salt intake since my husband and I are trying to do that right now. Most of the information was familiar to me, so I don't think I really gained any new information. I was hoping for more concrete suggestions.


I tried searching the nutrition information on different fast foods. I was disappointed that Jack-in-the-Box and Whataburger were not listed, since those are probably our most frequently visited fast food restaurants. I found that a single slice of Papa John's pizza is nearly the same in fat, calories, and sodium as a Dairy Queen Homestyle Hamburger. Since I always have more than one slice of pizza, I guess the hamburger would be a healthier option.


I went to the Recipes.Sparkpeople.com site and tried to post a recipe, but it didn't seem very user friendly. I tried to enter a Fresh Apple Cake recipe, with cooking oil as my first ingredient. My cake recipe calls for 1 1/4 cup cups oil, but the site wanted me to use only a whole number, as in 1 cup, 1 tablespoon, etc. I couldn't find a way to make it accept a fractional amount. I didn't have time to continue, so I came back to it later on my home computer. It seemed to be responding a little bit better, but it still would not allow me to enter fractions. I entered an approximation of a cream cheese dip recipe, then adjusted it to use fat free cream cheese and reduced fat cheddar. It made a little difference in the nutrition calculations. The full fat version had 230 calories per serving, but the reduced fat version had 204 calories. I question the accuracy of these numbers because I think the fat free cheese would cause more reduction in calories than that. Since it was not the accurate recipe anyway, it doesn't tell me very much. I'm not posting the recipe because the site wouldn't allow me to enter the recipe with the actual amounts the recipe requires.

I did not find these exercises or these web sites to be very useful to me. I might play with them a little bit more, but do not believe I will use either of these web sites regularly.