Saturday, April 9, 2011

My New Tool

In an effort to make the wisest choice when it came to what foods I should be eating, I decided I needed to know more about the nutrients in each food I consume. I really don't have time to read all the labels when shopping. If the store is busy I could be preventing someone else whose in a hurry from getting to a product they might need. I thought to myself that it would be an excellent thing if I could find out about the nutritional value of a food from home before I went shopping. Amazingly, I can.

Self Nutrition Data, Know What You Eat

We had braised country style ribs for dinner last night. Usually I serve them with a baked potato. I decided to have parsnips in place of potato. Hubby prefers the potato, but for me, the parsnips were a better choice. I get tired of potatoes. Last night, after I had served dinner, I decided to see what nutritional information I could find online. Quite by accident I discovered that nutrition site.

There's more on that site than just the nutrition label. It gives glycemic index for diabetics. It lists serving size, calories and says what is good about a particular food and what is bad. Parsnips are a little high in sodium. It lists the amount of sodium in the serving so I know not to add salt when I cook them. Gives a break down of all the nutrients to be found in the food. It even will estimate ones caloric needs when given the information it asks for.

All I have to do is type the food I'm looking for into the search box. It then gives you a page which includes choices. Things like whether the item is fresh, frozen or canned. Cooked with salt, raw. etc. You just choose the item that is closest to what you're looking for and it gives you all the label information plus other types of information about the item.

For me, this site will be useful when I need to go grocery shopping. I can decide from the comfort of my home if I'm making the wise choices. Also on that site is something that I never thought about. I have arthritis, and some foods have the ability to contribute to inflammation if a condition exists. Some are anti-inflammatory in nature. Knowing which foods are which could go a long way towards helping control the pain and the joint destruction.

With all the cleaning I've done today, my joints aren't happy. I think I'll go run the foods I plan on having for supper past the nutrition sites data finder. Hopefully they'll be anti-inflammatory so I'll be able to sleep in comfort tonight.

8 comments:

  1. This is great, Sherry! I also look forward to using it as well!

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  2. HD,

    I'm actually excited about it. There's a great deal of info there about each food that the labels just don't tell us. LOL, I sent the link to my doctor via email.

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  3. Good info. I saw they even have an inflammation index, which caught my eye.

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  4. interesting site - I plan to use it too.

    thanks for a good article

    ice

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  5. Sherry:

    Neither my wife nor I suffer from any serious health problems, but we have become more aware of the choice of foods we consume. We do enforce a count of calories, fat content, and sodium in our diet. We have increased our consumption of those foods known to promote health such as grains, fresh fruits and cruciferous vegetables, and fatty fish. Meanwhile, we have reduced out consumption of red meats while adding more chicken and fish to our diet. It is also wise to reduce the amount of processed foods one eats because they are so high in sodium.

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  6. Skinny,

    If we totally gave up eating things with inflammatory properties we'd be giving up most of the healthier foods we eat. Like oatmeal for instance. I use it to find a balance. So many points of inflammatory foods balanced out by so many points of anti-inflammatory foods. Aiming, of course, for higher numbers on the anti-inflammatory side.

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  7. ice,

    In your case, knowing how to work with the glycemic index would allow you more room for foods you might be passing by due to your diabetes. Any tool that helps us make wiser choices has to be a good thing.

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  8. Whit,

    Sodium is found in things you wouldn't think about. Like the parsnips and something else I was looking up. Chicken breast has 74 mg of sodium per 3.5 ounces. Turkey only 45 mg. Since Turkey has fewer calories as well, it would be a wiser choice for me.

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