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Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

spe.lt

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Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#11

Post by gusgordon »

white-flame wrote: post #4

What about the vitamin & mineral content? Having carbs/fat/protein/calories seems to be more focused on people avoiding getting too much of "bad" stuff, as opposed to ensuring they do get proper nutrition in terms of "good" stuff. However, the interface would seem to get pretty cluttered if it was a more complete nutritional profile.

Yes, I want to include that. There are a couple problems — incomplete nutrition profiles for certain foods, and slightly different foods having very different micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). For example, while a homemade cheeseburger and a cheeseburger from McDonald's have very similar macronutrients, they may have completely different micronutrients.

That said, general guidelines can still be given. It's important to remember that, in general, the amount of calories consumed matters the most. Other information is important too, though.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#12

Post by mark_l_watson »

pkaye wrote: post #10
mark_l_watson wrote: post #8

Does this use the USDA Nutrition Database? It is a useful source of nutrient data that I have used for many years on my http://cookingspace.com site (parden the plug). I really like the user interface on spe.lt - nicely done!

This is really needed! I'm on a renal diet and I have to watch every number like protein, sodium, phosphorus, potassium, fat, etc. I struggle day by day cobbling things in google docs online because the tools online don't suffice.

I originally wrote cookingspace because I need to track how much vitamin K is in my diet.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#14

Post by fpgaminer »

Worked for a few items I tested, but failed for "soylent 1.5". That gave me "1.5 pouches Soylent", but what I wanted was "1 pouch Soylent v1.5". But otherwise, I enjoy the simplicity and interface.

I currently use My Fitness Pal on my phone to track calories during bulking and cutting. For the most part, the app is great, especially its database, but it has several quirks that make using it more difficult than it has to be. Putting the Add Food button directly over the advertisements, for example... But more importantly, inputting certain food items can be tedious. For example, logging "204 grams of milk" is difficult, but spe.lt handled that gracefully.

I feel like spe.lt combined with My Fitness Pal's database and a speech-to-text interface would be splendid.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#15

Post by seivan »

fpgaminer wrote: post #14

Worked for a few items I tested, but failed for "soylent 1.5". That gave me "1.5 pouches Soylent", but what I wanted was "1 pouch Soylent v1.5". But otherwise, I enjoy the simplicity and interface. I currently use My Fitness Pal on my phone to track calories during bulking and cutting. For the most part, the app is great, especially its database, but it has several quirks that make using it more difficult than it has…

Not sure Siri (Wolfram) has Soylent, but you can ask her about "calories in a slice of pizza" or "calories in a cheeseburger" :)

Does anyone know if there is a js-lib where you can subtract units and from written text like this does?

I have my own database of values I want to try this on.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#18

Post by gusgordon »

teekert wrote: post #17

Nice, I even found a dutch entry (Boterham ham en kaa (trailing s is missing?)), which makes me wonder, where do you get the info? Is it reliable?

Thanks, the trailing s is missing because it's trying to singularize "kaas" :)

The information is from USDA, and scraped from a bunch of other various sources. The info should be vastly correct, "correctness" is also a heuristic taken into account when returning results.

Re: Show HN: Intuitive nutrition information

#20

Post by rohanprabhu »

brandonmenc wrote: post #5

This is very cool. I spend way too much time consulting nutrition tables to plan my meals - I would use this all the time. Great UI too. I see you have grams for protein but not the other two macros. Could you add them?

Not that it matters if it is added, I can see the rationale behind this. Generally when people are following a program, depending on the program and the cycle (bulking or cutting), there is a set amount of proteins one should consume (1.5g/lb of body weight, 1g/lb of body weight etc.) and the remaining calories are to be attained from carbs/fats in some ratio (which in some cases might not even be defined, but left to preference).
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