Nutrition tracker/recipe calculator / snack tracker /meal planner

[Skeptix]

This question probably has more relevance to a very low protein / plant based diet regime, but is relevant, I imagine, to anyone who wants to manage their diets closely/anally retentively/creatively.

I came across Nutritics.com. It's an Irish (of all places) company offering PC /Smartphone based software with a huge database on food nutrition. It appear to allow you to easily extract nutritional information so as to:

- build own recipes

- add shop bought processed food to your daily intake (more Ireland & England than US focused). Things like a packet of "Dorito Tortilla Chips"

- add in own foods. You could, for example, input the data from the back of a packet of biscuits you like and make that a food items. Click on it to add it into your daily budget and it's nutrients are added to your total

- meal plan (making a plan up from your recipes/own foods/shop bought items.

- diet log. Haven't checked this out but imagine it tracks intake over time to show trends. Where you might be over or under doing it.

I got it on a 7 day free trial to see how it works. It's aimed at the dietician world rather than the individual so has an interface/features suited to that which may not be applicable. Means my family could be "clients" of mine - my wife could track her dietary intake via the same account, I suppose.

Tried it this morning:

I assembled a fresh fruit bowl for breakfast this morning - whatever was in the fridge. Added a few nuts and a tablespoon of low fat yogurt on to it. Then went to the software and entered in all the ingredients to make this a "recipe". Software spits out alot of data on a huge range of nutrients, vitamins, etc. Everything a CKD-er would want bar for very specialist items like PRAL.

It ain't super cheap - costs about €150 a year for the base pack. And maybe €200 a year if you want the meal planner element. But it is pretty sophisticated in that it takes all the work out of tracking the numbers, once you've put in the spade work.

Before I go running of spending money / rediscovering the wheel, I thought to ask here whether there is any software being used by folk with CKD which has these kinds of features. It'd be good to do a side by side assessment. If I'm to have any chance of sticking to a diet, I'd need to have an easy way to get some kind of handle on what I'm sticking into my gob!

Cheers in advance.

[Sunglobe]

Hi Skeptic,Check out Cronometer. It does everything you mentioned, input/make your own recepies with portion size/nutrient breakdowns, store bought processed food input from their database, you can add in if not in their datsbase. Has daily breakdown of all your totals etc. etc. etc. You can set the limits for your max totals on protein, nutrients etc. You can choose which items you want to track or not. Does trends, reports, you can share with your dietician if you have one and desire to do that.

I have the basic free download, but you can upgraded to get everything you need. The free one does what I need, but I've been thinking of upgrading to get all the bells & whistles. I don't think it's expensive for an annual fee. Check it out.....before spending too much!

[Skeptix in reply to Sunglobe]

Cronometer seems to be the way to go having played with it a few days.

It has quite a lot of stuff I buy here in Ireland surprisingly which is handy. Dairy free yogurt or veggie sausages and the like.

What do you do though when there's a shop bought item not on their database? Sure, you can enter basic nutrients listed but not all the other stuff like vitamins or amino acid breakdowns. If these not entered then you can't track 'em?? Plus a bit of ball breaker to enter a hundred nutrients!

Best is probably to forego prepped shop foods and cook your own from fresh. Which we already knew I suppose!

Good tip on Cronometer though, thanks..

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador]

HI Skepitx, I use MYFITNESPAL. Does not do the same things yours does unless you pay. But for building an library of what you eat a lot and tracking it works. Do what is best for you and the money is well spent.

[GoodHealthIsAJourney]

I agree with Sunglobe - check out Cronometer. I used to use MyFitnessPal (no disrespect to Bassetmommer!), but it's all user-inputted data, and so many of the entries are wrong. You won't get a true picture of what you're eating. The free version of Cronometer should be enough, but if you want to upgrade, it's $39.99/year. Not bad.

[MartyVA in reply to GoodHealthIsAJourney]

MyFitnessPal also allows you scan package bar codes. Including supermarket cooked packaged foods. Yes, there is a lot of user input but I only scan and use the package bar codes and adjust serving based on what I’m eating. You can create your own recipes, menu, etc. with the free version. So far I have not found a reason to subscribe to the premium service. There is a lot of valuable nutritional information available by individual food items, meal or day. I’m CKD stage 4 and watching everything I eat. I also linked MyFitnessPal to MapMyFitness and my exercise data is mapped across to MyFitnessPal.

[Skeptix]

Am looking as we speak. Had a look at my fitness pal but the nutritics seemed to offer much more. Except for price. This chronometer might be it.

That said, the nutritics is Irish based so has Irish supermarket foods already installed which is handy for all the shop bought stuff. Reached out to nutritics offering to road test their product as a private user instead Iof dietician for a reduced fee. No joy!

Just back from the supermarket where I fished in aisles never visited before (vegetarian/vegan). You pick up a 4 pack of yogurt. Now this Nutritics happens to have that brand but the effort we're that not the case. Tracking a myriad of nutrients that don't even appear on the ingredients declaration.

Alright...!