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INFODUPE.TXT
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1988-08-07
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WHITEWARE NUTRTION ANALYST
This is version 0.088 of the Nutrition Analyst.
Please send comments and suggestions to the author at:
James White
8544 Bryan
St. Louis, MO 63117
Registered users may call for assistance: (314) 726-1584.
Register by printing REGISTER.DOC. Fill it out and send with a
check or money order for $24.95 (Missouri residents send $26.73
including 6.725% sales tax). Registered users will receive the next
edition of the food libraries at no additional charge.
This program has two main parts.
The "Test diet" section lets you select particular foods, one at
a time, and keeps a running total of total nutrients (calories,
protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals). The "Build
program diet" part generates a total daily diet, within the
limitations you give it, either from scratch or from a partial diet
created with the "Test diet" section. Numerous utility routines help
analyze individual foods, adjust your nutritional requirements, and
create a food database of your own from an extensive library of food
items.
The sections interrelate. After choosing foods in "Test
diet" for a while, selecting foods you desire (or perhaps your actual
meals so far for the day), you can return to the main menu, select
"Build program diet", and run that routine with the "Test diet" foods
assumed as the basis for the analysis. When "Build program diet" has
finished, you can return to "Test diet" with the programmed diet
intact, for further optimization. While you are in "Test diet", you
can go to "maximize nutrients" to hand-pick a food to, say, satisfy a
particular lack.
*** More detailed explanations. ***
INITIALIZATION The program begins with creation of your personal
dietary needs file. When you first start this program, you will be
asked for your name. (You should enter it exactly the same each time
you begin the program.) When you enter your name, the program looks
for your personal dietary requirements file. If your file does not
exist, the program will ask you various questions that are significant
in determining your daily nutritional needs. Then the program will
create a data file with your estimated dietary needs. Some notes on
this process: first, proper nutrition is not an exact science. Some
people utilize the available nutrients in their food more efficiently
than others, and personal idiosyncrasies simply cannot be taken into
consideration in this kind of program. The underlying theories of this
program are from the mainstream of nutritional thought. As will be
explained later in this text, I have tried to disregard all of the fad
diet concepts and base this program only on generally accepted
nutritional principles.
Basic to the operation of the program is the concept of Required
Daily Allowances (RDAs). These are based on standard nutritional
requirements.
MAIN MENU Here and elsewhere in the program, you may select an
option by pressing the first letter of the desired choice OR by
up/down arrow keys and <enter>.
TEST DIET The food database that is loaded when you first enter
the program contains some 130+ commonly available foods. These are
sorted alphabetically on three screens. Press <Enter> to change
screens, and select a particular diet item by typing the number of the
food. You may select any of these (or you may exit this segment of
the program by entering 0). Before specifying a serving size, <F1>
may be pressed to show you an analysis screen, relating the detailed
composition of the food to your RDA. After selecting a serving size,
the next screen presents a table with a cumulative analysis of the
foods selected so far. The bottom line of this screen (and elsewhere
in this part of the program) is another menu, selectable (as usual) by
initial letter or by left/right arrow keys. The choices let you go
back to the food displays to add more food, or choose a graphic
display of the cumulative nutrition of the selected diet, or go to the
"maximize nutrients" routine, or review the diet selected so far, or
Exit to the Main Menu. (If you go back to the main menu, you can then
go to Build program diet with your selected diet intact, if you
want.) In "adding" a food, you may enter a negative number to reduce
the servings of that food. If you subtract more of that food than you
had previously chosen, it will be reduced to zero. To enter a
fraction of a serving, you may use a decimal or a fraction.
BUILD PROGRAM DIET This routine is very calculation-intensive
and runs for quite a while once it starts. At the beginning of the
routine, you are asked to make several choices. First, if you have
selected foods in the Test Diet section, you are asked whether you
wish to keep your test diet. Then, you are asked whether you want to
set individual limits on foods. If you enter "y", then you will go
through each food in the data base, one at a time, to indicate how
much of that food item is acceptable. If you say no, you must still
set a general limit, say 3 servings, applicable across the board to
all foods. (You can also set a non-limit like 99 servings, but--trust
me--nobody could eat that much celery and mushrooms.) Finally, you
will be asked to set a sodium rule for the program. "No limit" will
disregard sodium in calculating a program diet. "Normal limit" will
cause the program to try to stay under your sodium RDA. "Restricted"
will cause the program to reduce sodium substantially.
UTILITIES The rest of the program segments are designed to make
the main program segments described above as useful as possible.
Change RDA allows you to adjust your individual requirements.
Edit food library allows you to delete or add foods from any of
the food libraries.
Change person allows you to substitute a different person's
daily requirements. (Previously selected menus will be retained when
you return to Test diet or Build Program diet, allowing you to plan
meals for the entire family.)
Replace library allows you to substitute a previously created
personal food data base.
*** Philosophy ***
That's all on how to operate the program. This section outlines
the diet theories and rules that underlie the program.
One of the questions you answer to create your personal
nutritional needs file is your desirable weight. (Frequently used
weight-height tables are available for reference at this point in the
program.) You were then asked to rank your daily activity level.
These two questions are used to determine your calory needs.
(In surveys, most people believe that their reaction to food is
unusual--most commonly, that they'll gain weight on less food than
other people. Most people are wrong. Unless your doctor has actually
diagnosed a thyroid malfunction [which almost always causes symptoms
in addition to weight problems], you should assume that your reaction
to food is within normal limits.)
The definition of your activity level is obviously more
subjective, but hopefully you'll be honest with yourself. A typical
office worker (largely sedentary, phone and light typing) is activity
level 1. A housewife with at least one child and no domestic help is
about a 2. Give yourself a 3 if your job requires effort equivalent
to constant walking. Ditch diggers and lumberjacks get 4s and 5s. Your
exercise program, no matter how energetic, should not be allowed more
than 1/2 addition to your score.
The energy level calculated by the program is designed to
maintain your desirable weight, based on your sex, age, activity
level, and the few other factors requested. This is the place to
stress that nutritionists unanimously believe that weight gain or loss
is determined by calories (energy input) and activity (energy output)
and by nothing else. It doesn't matter what time of day you consume
the calories, it doesn't matter whether the calories are mostly
carbohydrates or mostly fats or mostly protein. While this balance may
affect your health otherwise, for weight loss (or gain) purposes,
calories are calories. The most common rule of thumb is that one pound
equals 3500 calories--that is, that consumption of calories exceeding
energy usage by 3500 calories will translate to one pound gained, and
vice versa. The orientation of this program is to encourage you to
choose a diet that provides the number of calories you need while
suppplying your other daily needs. Unless your doctor puts you on a
crash diet for medical reasons, you'll be better off eating a properly
balanced maintenance diet. If you eat only the calories necessary to
maintain your desirable weight, you will eventually reach that
weight. At the same time, you will have established a healthy pattern
of eating that will last you a lifetime.
Your protein requirement is determined by your age and sex (and,
if you are female, your pregnancy and nursing status. Pregnancy and
lactation affect dietary needs dramatically, and are included
throughout this program). No distinction is made between complete and
incomplete protein, since careful combination of the incomplete
protein usually found in plants will result in complete protein. For
further information, see Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore
Lappé.
Carbohydrates are adjusted in this program. Food values are
modified from the values usually given to more closely estimate
complex carbohydrates and natural sugars. This program then requires,
as recommended in most modern texts, that a normal diet contain a
minimum of 48% complex carbohydrates and natural sugars (by calories).
No more than 30% of the calories in your diet should be fats, and
as little as possible of that should be saturated fats. Fat is
treated as a limitation on your diet, and is presented for reference
in that manner. Saturated fat and Cholesterol are similarly displayed.
There continues to be intense controversy about whether consumption of
cholesterol has any effect on cholesterol level in your body. You
don't need to eat any, since the human body manufactures more than you
need. In the absence of contrary medical advice, you may as well
follow the current recommendation of the National Institutes of Health
and limit cholesterol intake to 250 to 300 mg a day. The latter figure
is the one used in this program.
I said above that this program avoids fads, but dietary fiber
really is important for a properly designed diet. There is little
consensus of an appropriate level, so this program adopts a minimal
requirement which is still substantially greater than typical American
consumption.
The vitamin requirements used in this program are those currently
set forth as Recommended Dietary Allowances published by the Food and
Nutrition Board, National Academy of Sciences--National Research
Council. You should always remember that RDAs are intentionally set
high, in an effort to provide adequate nutrition to a diverse
population. Most people receive adequate nutrition at a level of 70%
or so of the published RDAs. Some minerals are not included in the
published RDAs, but are given instead as ranges of "Estimated Safe and
Adequate Daily Dietary Intakes." Of these, only potassium has been
included in this program, on the reasoning that deficiencies of other
minerals are unlikely in a diet which is otherwise adequate.
*** Acknowledgments ***
Many sources were used to develop the bases and data for this
program. Indispensable are the food analyses by the Department of
Agriculture, published in multiple volumes as Handbook 8. Of great
assistance was Jean Carper's Total Nutrition Guide (Bantam Books,
1987), which includes a great deal of unpublished food analysis from
the Department of Agriculture's computerized database. Other works
relied on heavily are: Dorothy A. Wenck et al., Nutrition (second ed.,
Reston Publishing, 1983); Jean A. T. Pennington & Helen Nichols
Church, Food Values of Portions Commonly Used (14th ed. of Bowes and
Church, Harper & Row, 1985); Ann M. Holmes, Nutrition & Vitamins
(published as a volume of the Time Medical Reference Library, 1983);
Richard Ashley et al., Dictionary of Nutrition (Pocket Books, 1975).