Nutritional Analysis for your Recipes!

Part of staying healthy is watching our diet and ensuring that we eat food to match our health and nutritional goals. One way to do this is to count our calories and watch our nutrition/ macro nutrients. This is easier to do if we only eat what is labeled from a supermarket, but harder accurately do when you make several foods from scratch. And as we need to incorporate several foods that won't necessarily have labels on them ( fruits and vegetables, lean meats, etc) this recipe analyzer can really help you stay on track!

Here's a link to help you analyze your home recipes for free!
http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/recipe_analysis.php

for example, here's a family recipe...
(the label to the left does not apply to the recipe below)





Wheat Muffins
Kirsten Ellsworth
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup milk
1/2 cup margarine melted
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Mix dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. In large measuring cup combine liquid ingredients. Pour over dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
Nutrition Facts; Serving Size 58 g Amount Per Serving; Calories 138 Calories from Fat 9% Daily Value* Total Fat 1.0g 1% Cholesterol 17mg 6% Sodium 173mg 7% Total Carbohydrates 28.7g10% Dietary Fiber 0.6g 2% Sugars 12.8g Protein 3.3g Vitamin A 1% Vitamin C 0% Calcium 4% Iron 7% Nutrition Grade C+ * Based on a 2000 calorie diet


When you cut and paste the ingredients into this site and determine how many servings you think this recipe will make ( I determined 12 muffins= 12 servings) you'll get a nutritional label for your recipe! Really if you think about it its determining those numbers for the entire recipe and dividing it per serving so you could figure it out for one batch of batter for cookies and then revisit and determine it for however many cookies you ended up getting out of the batter, then decide how many you're going to eat ;' )

NOTE: if a red flag shows up next to an ingredient you need to simplify the ingredient so it can find it and add it into the analysis. so instead of margarine melted or English cucumbers, just type margarine or cucumbers.

The great thing is that not only does it tell you the overall nutrition, and gives you an overall nutrition score ( notice the C+), it even breaks it up further and lets you know the nutrition is for each ingredient. So if you've determined that melted margarine should be replaced with applesauce, or some other substitution, you can see what kind of difference it would make in the recipes nutrition.


This is an invaluable tool for all of you calorie counters and dieters paying close attention to your macro nutrients. I hope you find it useful! I know I'll be using it more often!