Colossal Cookbook/ColossalCookbook.cdr/hn/wna/infodupe.txt

Text File | 1992-05-08 | 14KB | 210 lines

                    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: [phone].
          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).